There's Always a Man
by KHGiggle
Summary: Julie would have happily stayed with RED for the duration of her contract and never returned to Rapture. She had to though. They were making Little Sisters again. How could she live with herself if she just ignored them? Note: Added important author's note in first chapter
1. The Letter

AN: Well, here's the second part of my Variant series. If you already read 'There's Always a Lighthouse' I probably don't have to tell you much. If you haven't...Well, the two take place at the same time, so you could theoretically read this story first. I recommend reading 'Lighthouse' first though as events in 'Man' will spoil several surprises in 'Lighthouse', but 'Man' will still have plenty of surprises even after you read 'Lighthouse'.

Occasionally I'll post a really short chapter. When I do that I'll post another chapter alongside it so you don't get disappointed by an update that's only like 200 words long.

I do not own Bioshock or Team Fortress 2 in any way, and I am not making any profit from this story.

That should be everything, now let's get this show on the road!

Scout stretched as she came in from the battle. "That was pretty good!"

"We need to do better!" demanded Soldier.

"You always say that," muttered Scout. She glanced at the mailboxes. "Hey, I gotta letter!" She pulled it out and flopped onto the couch.

Demo grinned. "Who's it from?"

Scout looked at the address. "Looks like my Ma's handwriting." She tore open the envelope and pulled out several pages. "Yeesh. Wonder what happened this time." She started reading slowly.

 _"_ _Dear Julie, I hope you are doing well and have not been badly harmed since you last wrote. Things have not changed much since you were last home. Masha has escaped the asylum and come home again. I worry about her, I really do._

 _"_ _Sadly, your father's health is declining despite the medications and treatments I give him. I fear that soon he will be gone, and we will only see him again at Rapture."_

Scout froze. That word. She read it again to make sure she hadn't misread. Ma'd used _that_ word. The word none of them ever, ever used. There wasn't even a reason to use it like that. So why had she used it?

Something hit her forehead. Scout flailed and went to hit her attacker before she realized the only other person there was standing a few feet away. She blinked. "Engie?"

Engie was giving her a concerned look. "You okay?"

"Huh?" She realized Soldier and Demo were gone. "Oh!" How long had she been sitting there? "Yeah!" She held up the letter. "Letter from home." She lowered it and stared at the word again. "My old man's getting sicker."

Engineer frowned. "Sicker?"

Scout absentmindedly nodded. "He's been sick for years." She nervously toyed with the paper. "I've known for a while that he's never getting better, but still…" She needed Engie to leave. She needed to finish reading the letter as much as she didn't want to.

Engineer gave her a sad smile and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe you should take some time off to go see him. It sounds like you don't have many opportunities left."

She wanted to. She missed him so much more than she'd thought she would. She missed her sisters. Her Ma. Her _family_. "Yeah, I probably should." She stared at the letter. Why now? Why couldn't Rapture just die?

When Engineer left, Scout turned her attention back to the letter. Ma didn't outright say what was going on. Just talked about local happenings, how she'd met up with a reporter (That was odd. She avoided the press like the plague.), talked about young girls disappearing.

Wait. Young girls. Rapture.

Oh God.

Scout shot up and ran to the conference room to the phone that she snatched up as soon as she could grab it. "C'mon, c'mon."

"Ms. Pauling speaking."

Stay calm. "Ms. Pauling, I need a few days off. I gotta family emergency."

"Ah. Your dad getting worse?"

Scout wasn't even going to ask how Ms. Pauling knew about that. "Yeah, so do I got the time off?"

"Well, it will take a couple of days."

Not soon enough. "I don't have a couple of days!"

"I'm sorry. I'll try to put it through as quickly as I can, but you'll just have to wait."

"Okay, okay. Thanks. Call back soon." She hung up. Could she wait?

Scout walked to her room and locked the door behind her. She let her head fall against the door. What was she supposed to do?

Well, she needed to destroy the letter. She didn't know if Spy knew about her past or Rapture, but she couldn't risk it. Fortunately, she had enough Incinerate to light up a finger and slowly burn the paper to ashes.

That done, Scout paced back and forth, wondering if she should go or stay. She buried her face in her hands. Why did her life have to be so complicated? She groaned and glanced at her bed.

Scout pulled a trunk out from under her bed and opened it. Inside were little things that she couldn't bring herself to throw away: A baseball, a Big Daddy doll made out of various bits and odds, various dried flowers she picked up from wherever, a preserved rose…

Scout picked up the rose and turned it around between her fingers…It might not seem like much to others, but to her she couldn't think of anything more valuable. She carefully placed it back in its container and grabbed the wad of cash she kept in the corner. She closed the trunk and pushed it under her bed, packed her duffel bag, and walked straight to the garage. She'd spent so long reading her letter that it was already night. Probably why she didn't see anyone on the way there.

Well, maybe Spy was there. It was hard to tell with him. Didn't matter to her.

She grabbed her helmet, got on her motorcycle, and left.


	2. Going Home

Julie had caught several flights, a bus, and finally a taxi. She was tired, sore, and grumpy, but she was here.

She was home.

This was going to be very awkward. She hadn't exactly asked for permission before running off to become a mercenary. She raised a hand and knocked on the door. She took a deep breath.

Masha opened the door. She stared for a moment before wrapping her arms around Julie. "Julie!"

Julie smiled and hugged her back. "Hey Masha."

Mash turned back towards the house. "Daddy, Julie came home!"

Julie winced and stepped in. She immediately noticed a big difference: A wall of pictures and documents and thumbtacks. Her father was staring at it. Julie took another deep breath and walked over to him. "Hey Dad."

He turned to look at her before turning his attention back to the wall. Julie took a moment to study him. He looked more or less the same as he had seven months ago, but it was hard to tell with all the bandages. "Are you angry at me?"

He nodded.

"Well, I'm not apologizing," said Julie. "I'm not sorry. We needed the money, and I got it. Maybe it's not the way you wanted, but it's something I'm actually good at…and I like it. I know that's awful, but that's how it is."

Her father didn't respond. Julie huffed. "Anyway, Ma sent me a letter." She gestured at the pictures. "I guess this is what she was talking about…" She carefully read a few of the documents. "How long has this been going on?"

"It looks like a couple of years," said Masha.

Julie nodded. "…Ma went to get them didn't she?"

Masha nodded. "Yeah."

"Did anyone go with her?"

Masha shook her head. "We wanted to, but we were just too scared."

"Okay…" Julie stared at the wall some more. "I'm going."

Masha gulped. "Are you sure?"

Julie nodded. "Yeah, I figured I'd be going back when I got the letter." She turned back to her dad. "I know you're angry at me, and you definitely don't want me to go back, but I gotta. Ma can't rescue all those girls on her own."

Her father kept staring at the wall.

"Dad, please! I know you're angry at me…And you don't want me to go to Rapture. I get it. But I can't just sit back! I can help this time." She bowed her head, feeling almost like a small child again. "Please…"

Her dad sighed before slowly unraveling the bandages from his arm. It took a while. Julie didn't try to rush him. He had his pride. And Julie didn't want to leave. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed her family until just then.

The skin under the bandages was covered in scars and wasting away. Julie could see the beginnings of a tumor.

It always felt so surreal to see her father so weak.

He handed the bandages to Julie. She carefully wrapped them in plastic and put them in her bag. "Thank you." She wrapped her arms around him. "I love you. I promise I'll come home."

She hoped she could keep that promise.


	3. Catching A Ride

Julie needed a boat. She didn't know how to drive one though. It was more accurate to say she needed a boat and a captain.

Fortunately, she knew Whistling Carl. Her dad had a deal with him, and he should be waiting right…here. "Hey Carl."

Carl looked up. "Julie, right?" She nodded. "Need to go to the lighthouse?" She nodded again. "Right, hop in. You'll help with the nets and upkeep 'til we get there, and I'm not waiting around. You'll have to find a way back yourself."

"I'll deal with it."


	4. The Lighthouse

"Tenenbaum wouldn't say what this lighthouse was for," said Carl. "You wanna share?"

"You're better off not knowing," said Julie. She stared at the lighthouse for a moment before turning around to look at the sky.

Julie still remembered the first time she'd seen the sky. She hadn't understood what it was, thought it was a large ceiling. When she'd realized what it was, she'd been terrified that it would suck her up and into space where she'd burn up in the sun. Now she was afraid this was the last time she'd see it. "Don't wait up for me."

"Wasn't plannin' to."

With that, Julie walked into the lighthouse. The bathysphere was right where it was supposed be. She took out the bandage her father had given her and pulled the lever. The door slammed shut as the bathysphere started to go down.

Julie completely ignored the slideshow that was supposed to be the introduction to Rapture. Not like she needed it. Julie tapped her foot as Ryan went on and on until the screen lifted. Rapture…was a wreck. It was still lit up, but she could see at least one building had fallen over. She'd figured it would be completely in ruins by now, so she had no idea how it was still around. Maybe she could blow it up or something when they left.

As the bathysphere surfaced in the welcoming center, Julie grabbed the radio left next to the door. If things had gone well, her Ma would've left this for her to find at the correct wavelength. Julie held down the switch. "Ma? Are you there? It's me. Julie."

For a moment there was no answer, and Scout was terrified that something had happened to Ma. Then the radio crackled to life. "Julie?"

Julie let out a sigh of relief. "Ma."

"You got my letter?"

"Yeah."

"Did anyone else come with you?"

Julie shook her head. "They were too scared. I'm scared too." Which was why she hadn't stepped out yet.

"I know. I am so sorry you had to come back."

"So what's the plan?" asked Julie.

"We need to find and rescue the kidnapped Little Sisters of course. They have been converted, and I am fairly certain mentally conditioned. The process seems to be the same. The Big Daddies are keeping them safe. It doesn't seem any Little Sisters have been lost."

"That's good. What about the other ones we had to leave behind?" Silence. Julie started to get a bad feeling. "Ma?"

"The ones we had to leave behind have become feral."

"Oh…" Julie had been hoping they could get the Little Sisters they'd left behind. There'd always been a sense of guilt in the back of her mind when she thought of them, even though she couldn't have done anything. "Like splicers?"

"Worse. They've picked up plasmids and other enhancements from splicers they harvested. They're even more dangerous than Big Daddies now."

"Yikes."

"It is not like when your father came to Rapture. The splicers left have had time to learn how to survive and fight. The Big Sisters that were once your friends watch over the current generation of Little Sisters, and it is all being controlled by Sophia Lamb."

Julie blinked. "Uh…And that's…?"

"A psychologist, un-spliced. She has manipulated most of Rapture into a…a cult. Once they know you are here, they will try to kill you."

Julie huffed. "Hey, I'm a mercenary now."

"You'll still need every advantage you can get," insisted Ma. "You will need plasmids and gene tonics, and you will need to be careful. You can't go running into every fight you can find. For the sake of the Little Sisters."

Julie grimaced at the idea of actively splicing, but it wasn't just her life on the line this time. She'd have to suck it up. "Fine…Any chances I can find any lying around?"

"I doubt it. Although you should be able to skip the second level of any plasmids you acquire. Also…I did have some ADAM in storage. I used it to create the Cure your father used on you."

Julie remembered that. She'd been scared, then there'd been light, she'd been warm, and that nausea she'd always had had disappeared. "Great, how do I get it?"

"You're in the welcoming center, yes? Find a pneumo. I'll send you a test to make sure it is intact and then send you the Cure."

Julie winced and looked outside the bathysphere. "Okay." She psyched herself up for several moments and then threw open the door and jumped out before she could chicken out. Her eyes darted about. It was dark and messy with trash all over the place and a couple of bodies. Julie wasn't sure if it was better or worse than Little Sister La La Land. She decided to just find the nearest pneumo and relay the ID number to her Ma.

As Julie was waiting for the test run, she decided to keep up the conversation while she could. "So, what'd you send?"

"Soda."

Julie perked up. "Bonk?"

"Heaven's no. That is the unhealthiest consumable substance I have ever come across. I don't know why you like it."

Julie chuckled nervously. It did taste kind of funny, but it made it a lot easier to use plasmids.

"…There's something I haven't mentioned yet," said Ma

"I'm not gonna have ta go outside, am I?" joked Julie.

"Possibly, but that's not what I meant. I have something else you could use."

"Great!"

"It will reverse the effects of the Cure on you."

"What?!" Julie stared at the radio in shock. "Why would you make something like that?!"

"The Big Sisters are very strong. I think you would have some of the same advantages, even if not to the same extent. You would heal faster and be able to use plasmids more efficiently. You do not have to use it if you do not want to. Take your time to think about it."

She did. Julie remembered what it was like to be a Little Sister, and she hadn't realized how awful it was until she'd been Cured. Given, most of it had been the psychological conditioning that she'd eventually managed to shake. And yet…

And yet…

She'd been nearly impossible to kill. She'd been able to smell the ADAM in the corpses. It had been useful.

A thunk came from the pneumo. Julie opened it and found the bottle of soda unharmed. "Soda reached me."

"Very good. I will send over the Cure." Her Ma paused. "Do you want the Cure to the Cure?"

"…Can I be Cured again?"

"You should be able to."

Julie swallowed nervously. "Send it."

While she waited, Julie drank the soda, hoping it would settle her stomach. It didn't. She sat on the ground, realized how dirty it was, and stood back up. She wondered if anyone else would come here. Maybe she could find an audiovox recorder and leave them some tapes to help them out a bit. How do you record the tapes though? Where would she even get the tapes?

Eventually the pneumo thunked again. Scout took out the tube and opened it to show two syringes. One was red, the other was green. "Right, the Cure is red." So she injected that one first. She didn't feel any different.

Julie shrugged and looked at the other syringe. This would reverse the effects the Cure had had on her way back when. She didn't want to go back to that. Ever. She didn't have to. She could try and get through Rapture without it.

…But what were the chances she would survive without it? Julie took a deep breath, stuck the syringe in her arm, and pushed the plunger all the way down.

This time she felt the effect. Her body felt like it was burning, and she immediately started feeling lightheaded. She leaned against the wall and bit her lip as her stomach did flip flops. For a brief moment, she felt a pressure in her head, almost as if someone else was in there with her.

As the sensations started to fade, Julie realized that her Ma was talking to her. She picked up the radio. "Hey."

"The plasmids worked?"

"Yes." Her stomach still felt bad. "I feel like I'm gonna puke."

"You said that was normal before you were Cured. I think that will fade once you're Cured again."

"Yeah, makes sense." Julie studied her much paler arm. She wondered if her eyes were glowing too.

"Have you tried a plasmid?"

Julie snapped her fingers and they lit up. "Yeah, it's a bigger flame so I guess they're stronger. Was a bit easier to use it too so that's nice." She shook the flame away as it started to become painful. "Think it was starting to burn me. Is there a tonic that'll make me fireproof?"

"There's a gene tonic that will make you more resistant to fire, but we never figured out fireproofing."

"Good enough." Although if Julie managed to survive, suddenly being fireproof would raise some questions.

Wow, she was going to have a lot more to hide now, wasn't she?

"I don't suppose you have some extra ADAM I can use, do you?" asked Julie

"I have already used what I had to make the plasmids and tonics that would be necessary for anyone who has reached Rapture."

Julie blinked. "Not just me?"

"There are…other possibilities. We need all the help we can get."

Julie nodded in agreement. "Yeah, who are they?"

"I will let you know when we come into contact."

Julie decided to assume it was just her until then. "Okay, I'll get started. Talk to you in a bit."

"All right. Stay safe."

"You too." Julie clipped the radio to her belt and walked through the door.


	5. You have to use your head

Rapture was a mess. It had been a mess before, but Julie hadn't been that aware of it most of the time. Now though…She made a face. Place looked like it needed to be condemned. "Okay, first thing's first. I need a gun. And supplies." She started walking. After a while she came across a room with a large window and a Gatherer's Garden on the upper levels. Julie made a face at the machine before looking around. She didn't know where to go from here since the one way out had been destroyed by plane debris way back when.

She backtracked to the area with all the levels and looked down. Maybe she could climb down. A rope would be nice, but oh well. She flipped over the railing, holding on tight, swung back and forth a bit and jumped onto the level below. That had worked. Now let's see what she could find.

She found an audiovox. Curious she hit play. "Anyone who tries to stop the Family will be killed," said a man in what he thought was a threatening voice. Julie wasn't impressed and decided now was a good time to start recording some messages in case anyone else ended up down here. It seemed unlikely, but you never knew. It had happened before.

And then a splicer. Julie crouched around the corner when she saw him. She didn't hear any shouting so he probably hadn't seen her. "Well, it was gonna happen eventually." She hefted her bat. "Maybe he has a gun." She ran around the corner. The splicer turned just in time for Julie to slam her bat into his head with a loud crunching sound. Julie hit him another couple of times to be on the safe side. She frowned. "No gun…" She sniffed. "Has ADAM. Guess I can smell that again…Wonder if I can use that." She grabbed the guy's wallet and went on.

The welcoming district was pretty deserted. Hardly even any splicers. Not that that was a bad thing. Just…wow, this was somehow even more depressing than usual. At least she had time to go through the stores. Plenty of First Aid kits and EVE hypos. "I hope these are clean." She stiffened and took a deep breath. ADAM. Lots of ADAM. A Little Sister? Or a Big Daddy? Julie headed towards it, trying to be quiet.

Singing. Julie picked up the pace and saw a Bouncer…and then a Little Sister, who was currently harvesting. Julie looked around in confusion. Weird, usually splicers attacked or at least hung back in droves when a Little Sister was harvesting. Guess that meant that she couldn't wait for splicers to whittle down the Big Daddy for her. She'd have to careful and smart. So, what did she have?

A wooden bat (That wouldn't last long…), no gun, no bullets, no bombs, Lv.1 Electrobolt, Incinerate, Telekinesis, and Cyclone Trap. "Oh come on!" Why couldn't she have swiped some of Demo's sticky bombs? What else was explosive? Gas, gunpowder, nitroglycerin, flour (long story), pure oxygen.

Julie paused. Oxygen…

Julie promptly spent 10 minutes looking for oxygen/fuel tanks, and managed to find some in the Quarantine room, which might let her get to the Medical Pavilion later. Now, she needed to rescue a Little Sister. She picked up as many tanks as she could and started looking for the Little Sister and Big Daddy.

Oh good, they were still wandering around. Julie dumped the tanks and set them on fire. She telekinetically picked one up and threw it at the Bouncer. It exploded on contact. Julie ignored the Bouncer's roar and threw all the tanks in quick succession, not wanting to fight him up close. She'd seen what those drills could do!

Fortunately, it looked like she'd grabbed enough tanks. By the time the flames subsided, there was a burnt up Big Daddy and a crying Little Sister. Julie ran over and put a hand on the Little Sister. Her veins lit up, the Little Sister lit up, and then she threw up a glob of ADAM.

Ew. Julie slipped it into an empty water bottle.

The Little Sister sniffled and blinked a couple of times. "Big Sister?"

"…Pretty much." Julie picked the Little Sister up and carried her over to a nearby vent. "Go to Tenenbaum. You should know the way."

"Okay." The Little Sister crawled into the vent and disappeared. Julie let out a sigh of relief and started back towards the Gatherer's Garden she'd seen before.


	6. It hurts

Julie made her way back to the Gatherer's Garden without running into anyone and started going through the plasmids and gene tonics that were available.

She knew how her father had gotten through, but she wasn't her father. She'd have to use different strategies. So what-

Julie blinked. "There's a Scout plasmid?" That was…actually kind of funny. The description made it sound useful too. She decided to get it. She dumped the ADAM she had into the machine, and had about half left, so…another 40 units? 80 units for each Little Sister? Give or take? She'd never stopped to think about it before.

Julie figured she could get another gene tonic of some kind, but she wasn't entirely sure what she had. Maybe she should wait until after she found one of those gene circus things or whatever they're called. She didn't want to buy something she already had. She'd just have to wait.

Julie picked up the dispensed bottle and syringe and stared at them for a moment. She was going to have to do this eventually. It would be impossible to survive for the long term if she didn't.

So why did it feel like she was screwing herself over?

Julie finally loaded the syringe, stuck it in her wrist, took a deep breath, and pressed down the plunger.

Julie felt lightheaded for several moments, felt like she was having an out of body experience, then it was over. Julie focused on the feeling and pointed in front of her.

And now she was staring at herself. Wow, this was weird. She felt completely weightless. And then there was her body. It was just standing there, looking ahead blankly (Her eyes _were_ yellow.). She could immediately see the problem with the plasmid: Her body was defenseless. She'd have to find a way to keep it…her? She shook her head. Pronouns were the least of her worries. Point was she'd have to find a way to keep her body safe when she used this.

Hadn't her dad had a gene tonic that let him turn invisible? That seemed like it would work pretty well to hide her body. She'd have to ask Ma about it. She reached for her radio…and remembered she wasn't substantial at the moment. Oops.

Eh, she'd take care of it in a few minutes. She took a moment to see if she could use her plasmids still. She could. She grinned. Awesome. She walked backwards from her body until her vision started to blur. Then suddenly she got sucked back in.

Julie stumbled back and shook her head. "Whoa." That looked to be maybe a hundred feet. She grinned. Cool. She couldn't wait to put it to use. She picked up her radio. "Hey Ma?"

"Yes?"

"I rescued a Little Sister."

"I know. She's here already."

Huh, Ma must not be too far away. "So I got a Plasmid called Scout using the ADAM I got."

"Why am I not surprised?" said Ma, sounding lightly amused.

Julie grinned. "Anyway, I was wondering if you know what that tonic Dad uses to turn invisible is called."

"Natural Camouflage. Acquiring it would be tricky. You can only obtain it by using a research camera…unless you are lucky enough to find a dose somewhere. A plasmid that allowed the user to turn invisible was briefly available, but the production was stopped for some reason."

Julie groaned. "Well, that's just great! I have no idea where I'm supposed to get a camera! Guess I'll just have to find hiding places. Maybe figure out how to set up traps."

"Learn quickly."

"I will," promised Julie. "I'm gonna go to Medical. I think I can get there through quarantine."

"I can't say for sure, but the pressure doors aren't leaking so I believe the tunnel is intact."

Julie started walking, only to freeze when she heard a shriek. "What was that?"

"A Big Sister!"

"Crap!" Julie started running. She had no idea how tough a Big Sister was, but if they'd been consuming ADAM for as long as they had then they had to be tough, and she still hadn't found a gun!

Then again the gun probably wouldn't have done much either. She'd have to hope she found some more oxygen tanks.

She could hear something running behind her. Well, crap. Was that the Big Sister? Would she be able to look back without being attacked? She'd have to fight back at some point, but she needed to be sure she could take out this Big Sister. She couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Still, it would be nice to see what she was up against. She turned and threw an Electrobolt. She got a good look at the Big Sister and promptly turned and ran again.

Turned out Big Sisters wore diving suits like Big Daddies. They even had a metal helmet, so no shooting the head. Also, two really big needles on her arms. And she'd thrown off that Electrobolt pretty quickly. Of course that might be because it was a weak Electrobolt. Hard to say.

It suddenly occurred to Julie that pulling out the ADAM slug would probably kill the Big Sister. Easier said than done of course. It would be more realistic to blow her up.

There was Quarantine! Julie ran in and slammed the door shut with a cyclone trap right in front of it. The Big Sister slammed into the door with a screech. Knowing it wouldn't hold her for long, Julie started ransacking the room for an oxygen tank or anything that looked even a little useful. The metal door was sent flying across the room. Julie grabbed it with her Telekinesis and threw it at the Big Sister who'd been tossed upward by the cyclone trap placed earlier.

That worked better than Julie thought it would.

No time to pat herself on the back. Julie threw a few scalpels she'd found and ducked to the side.

An oxygen tank! Julie yanked it towards her and set it on fire before spinning around.

Too late. Julie found herself impaled on the massive needle on the Big Sister's left arm, and it's screeching, screeching, and the fire.

Julie brought her legs up and kicked against the Big Sister's body hard enough to send herself backwards off the needle and threw the oxygen tank. The Big Sister caught it.

The tank exploded.

Julie was sent flying into the wall. God, she hurt so much, but she needed to keep moving if she wanted to stay alive. The Big Sister was still moving.

Frustrated, Julie hit the Big Sister with her bat. At which point she realized that her bat had broken in two. So instead she stabbed the Big Sister in the stomach with it. She didn't stop stabbing until the adrenaline faded and Julie realized she was tasting blood in her mouth and seeing double. She scrabbled for the first aid kits in her bag, and her hands were shaking so badly she almost couldn't inject the syringes full of reparative stem cells.

The modified ADAM did its job enough that Julie was able to start wrapping some bandages she'd found around her torso (Thank God that needle missed her spine.) and head. Julie took several deep breaths as she stared at the dead Big Sister. She tugged the helmet off. Underneath was a normal looking girl, face slack in death. She looked familiar, but Julie couldn't place her. She swallowed, sniffled and sat down. She pulled the radio out. "Ma?"

A sigh of relief came over the line. "Thank God. Are you all right?"

"I used a couple of first aids." Julie spat out some blood. "Not as much blood."

"See if you can wait another moment to let it finish its work."

Julie nodded. "Okay…"

"…Something is bothering you?"

Julie's eyes drifted towards the Big Sister's face again. "I know I must have known her…But I don't recognize her."

"That's not so strange. It's been years. She must have changed quite a bit over the years. And you likely have forgotten information from when you were young."

"But…It just feels wrong!"

"It is. This shouldn't have been done in the first place." Julie was suddenly reminded that Ma was just as upset, even if she wasn't showing it. "All we can do for them is put them out of their misery and prevent their fate from being repeated."

"There's nothing we can do to snap them out of it?" pressed Scout.

"I…I don't know. I'm not a psychologist, but even if there was a way to help them, they wouldn't let us."

It made sense. Julie knew that. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"I'd be worried if you did."

Julie turned the helmet over in her hands. If Dad hadn't found her, this could've been her. And that was when she got a crazy idea. "Hey hold on a moment. I wanna try something."

She disrobed the Big Sister, doing her very best to ignore what her former sister looked like underneath and put the suit on. It was a bit big on her and she had to abandon the braces since they didn't fit, but she could deal with a baggy suit. She just needed to find a way to repair the huge hole she caused with her makeshift bomb.

Also turned out the Big Sister had some ADAM in the bottle attached to her needle apparatus. Julie took a moment to put the ADAM left in her water bottle in the glass bottle. Seemed safer. Julie moved around for a moment. The weight on her back from the oxygen tank was probably going to throw her off, but she figured that if she couldn't get used to it she could take it off. The cage was promptly used to store her clothes and a few other supplies. She kept most of her first aid supplies and EVE hypos in her Mann Co. bag, which she tied around her waist. All in all, she was pretty sure this would work. "Hey, Ma, I'm wearing the Big Sister suit."

"Good idea. It should throw the Family off somewhat."

Julie slipped on the helmet. "Better head protection too. Can you still hear me?"

"Your voice sounds…odd, but it is coming through."

Julie nodded. "Good. Should be some kind of thread in Medical that I can use. Think you can tell me apart from any other Big Sisters you may see on camera?"

"I hardly ever see any Big Sisters on camera. It shouldn't be difficult."

"Great. Talk to you later." Julie clipped the radio to bag strap. She started for the door but saw her sister's body again.

…

…

She couldn't just leave her like that.

Julie picked up her sister and put her on a gurney. She quickly closed her sister's eyes, which made her look more peaceful. Julie looked around for another moment and found a sheet that she used to cover her sister's body.

Julie winced. Her sister was still dead, but at least her death seemed…more respectful. Julie felt a bit less horrible anyway.

Julie sighed and opened the door to the Medical Pavilion.


	7. I can tell

Julie got through the tunnel with no issues. The Medical Pavilion looked okay. There were a couple of splicers…with guns! Julie promptly electrocuted and rushed them. She spent a moment looking over the two guns before emptying one and tossing it aside. One thing she'd learned from joining Red: Shooting two guns at once was stupid and inefficient. So now she had one revolver and five bullets. Not much, but it was something. She could probably scavenge/buy more bullets. She'd like something with a larger clip, but she was aware that machine guns were common in Rapture so she wasn't too concerned.

Okay, she needed a list of things to do here. 1: Keep an eye out for Little Sisters and Big Daddies. 2: Keep an eye out for Gatherer's Gardens. 3: Keep an eye out for any gene tonics that happened to be lying around (Unlikely but not impossible). 4: Find something to repair the suit with. 5: Find a machine gun and any other useful weapons. 6: Find a way to move on from the Medical Pavilion. 7: Look out for any other supplies she happened to find. That sounded about right.

Julie sequestered herself in a nook and sent out her Scouting projection. She did see a couple of splicers. Turned out she couldn't hit them while she was Scouting. She just set them on fire instead before retreating back to her body. She could come up with something more efficient later. She ran out, electrocuted a security camera, and gave each screaming splicer a headshot. Then she picked their pockets (Why Rapture had made fireproof wallets she had no idea.) and ducked under the camera to pull out the wires. She sucked at hacking. Best to disable or destroy the security cameras.

Julie had just finished breaking the camera when she noticed a pink glow out of the corner of her eye. She quickly spun around and let out a sigh of relief when she saw it was a first aid station and not a turret. She'd nearly forgotten about these things. She walked over and studied it for a moment. She guessed she could use it instead of a first aid hypo, but it would still cost money. She probably wouldn't be able to hack these either…Crap, that meant splicers could use them. She definitely didn't want to deal with that. It would be better to break them, and now that she thought about it…

Julie quickly tore apart the first aid station and found a first aid kit. That would work just as well, and it was free.

Julie stuck the kit in her pack and added destroying first aid stations to her list.


	8. He was a good hippo

Julie had come to a crossroads. There was a sign indicating a gynecologist's office down one hallway. Bleh. Another led to a hand doctor. Okay. The last hallway was for employees only. Julie figured that's where the good stuff was and headed for the double doors. The lock had been broken for a while at this point so she wouldn't be the first, but oh well.

Julie darted into the first open door, which was an office. She checked the room quickly and found a couple of dollars. Better than nothing.

She Scouted the next couple of rooms and discovered a mumbling splicer. She ran over and stabbed him through the heart. Then she started exploring the rooms up until then. Some cans of food were in one. She ate the one of string beans with her traveling spork (Yes, she'd predicted this situation.) and stored the rest of the cans for later.

The next room had an EVE hypo. She snagged it.

The next room had a dead body (promptly searched) and an audiovox that she played. Out came a female, Irish voice. "Rian…I hope you're the one that found this." Julie tensed. This was for Ryan? "I came to the Medical Pavilion because I needed to talk, but I can't find you anywhere. I'm worried. Please, if you get this contact me. I'll keep checking the histology lab. It's the one with the hippo, right?" The recording abruptly

Julie blinked. "Hippo?" What was a hippo doing here? And what was histology? Was that lady talking to Andrew Ryan or someone who had the same name? Whichever it was, it didn't seem particularly relevant to her. She sent another Scouting projection out. There didn't seem to be too many splicers in this area, but she did see one up ahead that she set on fire before returning back to her body and continuing forwards.

Next up was a fork in the road. Julie took the left since it seemed to head towards a set of labs of some sort. She wrinkled her nose as she walked in the left one. "Ugh!" It smelled awful even through the suit. Maybe that was why the splicers were avoiding this area. What was that smell anyway? She looked at the closest container and blinked. It was quite openly labeled as being a thyroid. She glanced at the next container, which was stated to be a uterus. Oh. That was probably why it smelled funny. She gave the room a quick lookover and then darted to the room across the hall.

There were several odd machines lining the wall that Julie couldn't identify, but what really caught her attention was the hippo doll sitting next to one of the machines. Julie stared. Was that what the Irish lady had been talking about? Julie decided to see if there was anything in the drawers flanking the weird machine. One had the numbers '1920' carved into the back of it. She had no idea what that was for. The other drawer surprisingly had a gene tonic in it. "Huh." After a moment of deciphering the text and studying the picture, Julie determined the tonic was EVE Link…which would restore some EVE when she used a first aid hypo. Well, she was fairly certain she didn't have that. She uncapped the needle and stuck it into her side.

Once it stopped burning, Scout threw the syringe away. She went through the rest of the room, but didn't find anything particularly useful. The next room had a bunch of containers that looked to have held chemicals that had evaporated long ago. Also some bottles that still had chemicals. Julie grabbed a couple of smaller, flammable ones. Also…another audiovox.

"Rian, your coworkers said they saw you a couple of hours before. Are you avoiding me? I know we don't always see eye to eye, but this might be our last chance to talk to each other. Please…I don't want it to end like this."

"No kidding," muttered Julie.

The last lab was more chemicals and samples. She went back into the hallway, Scouting to make sure she wouldn't have to deal with any surprises. It was mostly offices. There was one room with lockers.

Julie remembered the numbers carved into the drawer and tried the lockers. Some were broken. Some refused to open. One clicked open when she set the lock to '1920'. Inside was another gene tonic and an audiovox. Julie picked up the audiovox and hit play.

"Rian, I know now I won't see you again. I'm starting to have hallucinations. I'm not sure how much longer I have, so I'm leaving…And I won't come back. I don't want to risk killing my own brother. This is my parting gift to you. Use it, trade it, throw it away. It doesn't matter anymore. And Rian…" The woman started to cry. "I am so sorry it had to be like this. I just wish-" The audiovox suddenly cut out. Julie checked the cassette. It ran out of tape.

So…This Ryan guy, who was probably not Andrew Ryan, was this lady's brother? Or her brother worked here at least. And didn't want to talk to her. And she was a splicer now, if she was even still alive. It was surprisingly depressing. Julie decided she didn't want to think about this anymore.

Julie grabbed the gene tonic…The lady's gift to Rian? That he just left here for some reason. It seemed like common sense, but it also seemed like a waste. She read the description, blinked, and re-read to make sure she hadn't messed up any of the words. This was a gene tonic that would permanently disable any security devices that were hit with Electrobolt. Handy. She injected it.

One less thing to worry about.


	9. Contact

Julie couldn't go any further so she decided to backtrack and try the hand surgery wing. She was putting off going to the gynecologist wing for as long as possible.

That weird pressure was back in Julie's head. She closed her eyes with a hiss.

 _Hello?_

Julie's eyes shot open and she looked around for who was speaking.

 _I was right. You can hear me._

Julie felt as confused as the voice sounded. Why wouldn't she be able to hear this…woman? Julie growled as she failed to find the woman. "Who's there?!"

 _My name is Eleanor. I was a Little Sister. You were one too?_

Julie frowned. "Yeah, you a Big Sister?"

 _Not exactly. I was deprogrammed. I'm more like you than them._

"Oh…" Julie wasn't sure she believed Eleanor, but it could be possible. Julie looked around one more time, starting to wonder if Eleanor was even nearby. "How the heck am I hearing you?"

 _Please stop talking._

Julie raised an eyebrow.

 _My mother has been injecting me with ADAM. She isn't aware of this, but it has allowed me to see and feel through the new Little Sisters. The Big Sisters, less so. I can just barely sense them unless I concentrate, but I noticed when you appeared somehow. And I saw when you saved that Little Sister instead of killing her._

Of course she saved that Little Sister. She'd been in that situation. She still felt bad about killing the Big Daddy though.

 _I want to help my sisters. That includes you…I think…We used to know each other, but it's been so long that I don't know who you are._

That made sense. Julie was sure she'd known this Eleanor at some point, even if she couldn't place her. It had been a while after all.

 _I had the Little Sisters bring you a plasmid. It should help you with your mission. I have to go. My father's waking up soon._

Father? Julie wondered what that was about. She moved forward and found a small alcove containing a red wagon. In the wagon were two jars of fireflies and a red bottle.

Wow, so that wasn't a weird ADAM based hallucination. Julie looked at the vial: Security Command.

Hey, she remembered her dad talking about this one! It was useful! She quickly injected it. After a brief moment of nausea she wondered how to go about using it. Ma said it manifested as a blue polyp. She tried to picture one coming out of her hand. A blue polyp popped out of her hand. Nice. She wondered if it would work in her Scouting projection. It wouldn't make sense, but plasmids didn't make sense in general so it was worth a shot.

Then she let the fireflies out. They looked nicer outside of the jar than inside.


	10. Fun with Security Command

Julie got a chance to test the new plasmid out as she sent a Scouting projection forward and saw both some splicers and a turret. She popped out a Security Command polyp and threw it at a splicer. The splicer was promptly shot up. Julie tossed another polyp at the other splicer. She waited until they were dead and then electrocuted the turret. Then she was jerked back to her body.

Julie shook her head. Looked like she could only use three before she got forced back into her body. Maybe she could use more or go further if she got an upgrade.

She ran over to grab whatever the splicers had on them and continued to look around what she was pretty sure was the waiting area. It looked like it had been vacated suddenly because there were a few bags lying around that had money in them. Nice. Julie could buy some bullets and first aid kits with this.

Julie headed into the offices and examination rooms. These were fairly empty except for medical supplies, like empty syringes. She guessed that could be useful, but she didn't want to carry around more sharp objects. The real find was some sewing needles and heavy duty medical thread. She spent a little while using it to sew up the holes in her suit. She couldn't go outside in the water with this shoddy fix job, but it would at least make her suit look more authentic than if it was in tatters.

Next were some offices that had faded papers and an audiovox. "Ugh, Steinman is taking all of our business. I know that he's a genius, even more so now that we have something like ADAM, but he's a plastic surgeon, not a hand surgeon. Mark my words, those patients of his aren't going to get what they want from him."

Well, he was right, but not in the way he was expecting. Julie hoped she wouldn't have to go to that wing of the Medical Pavilion. She quickly drank some soda and ate some canned meat before returning to where she'd entered before and heard familiar moaning.

Julie carefully snuck around to see a Bouncer lumbering along. No Little Sister. No reason to directly confront him. Although if what she'd heard was true…

She threw a Security Command. The Bouncer gave no sign of noticing that she'd hit him with the polyp. That was good. She could use this to whittle down his health for a little while, and she doubted any security feature could completely take him down so she could use it on him until he called a Little Sister to him.

Of course she also had to deal with those splicers she saw ahead of him. If she was lucky, they'd consider her a genuine Big Sister and ignore her. If they decided to attack, she was keeping the Bouncer in front of her. Let him do the hard work.

The disguise seemed to be working. The splicers glanced at her, but shied away. What a relief. She'd be able to conserve bullets and EVE this way.

The intercom suddenly crackled to life. "Attention Rapture Family. We are in the midst of a crisis."

Julie blinked. Who was that?

"An intruder has come to Rapture, killed one of the Protectors, and taken one of the Little Sisters."

The Big Daddy was continuing on, but the splicers were starting to become riled up. Julie tried to nonchalantly continue on.

"He has disguised himself as Big Sister to gain your trust."

Crap. She was sure the splicers were looking at her now.

"This attacker seeks to tear us apart from the inside out, stealing away our children who would trust him as their protector."

Crap. Crap. Crap.

"We cannot allow this criminal to continue his ways. He must be found and eliminated, lest he continue to steal our future."

Julie instinctively rolled to the side as she heard a gun fire. The bullet hit the Bouncer instead. He spun with a roar and promptly rushed the splicer that had fired at him. Julie took advantage of the situation to run down the hallway.

She could follow the Bouncer later.


	11. Welcome to the Bank

Julie was trying to figure out how to get out of the Medical Pavilion.

It wasn't that she thought she'd found everything here. She knew she hadn't. She was sure that there were plenty of useful items around, not to mention at least a couple of Little Sisters. It was just that she knew she was going to need to get out of there at some point. Plus, she knew better than to stay in one place once an enemy knew you where you were. It's just that she didn't know where she was exactly or where to go. She honestly wasn't sure how much a map would help in this situation either.

Julie let out a groan and decided to keep walking until she found something that at least seemed useful.

It was easy to fall into routine. Walk down hallways, Scout around corners, shoot splicers in the head, scavenge, look for useful items, and look for audiovox. So far the audiovox were mostly things she already knew, like Steinman being crazy, or useless stuff, like the price of fish and vegetables. Julie still wanted to leave recordings though, so she kept them for later.

Then she saw a Gene Bank (So that's what they were called.) Julie looked around to be absolutely sure that no one was around to bother her before making a beeline for it. She had to slip one of her gloves off for the needle, which was thankfully taken from a sterile reservoir, to get her blood sample. Then she waited for a few minutes for the sample to be analyzed until the screen lit up with the plasmids and tonics she had in her body. No surprise plasmids. However, in addition to her Eve Link and Short Circuit 2 and the Sports Boost she knew she had, there were some…odd gene tonics.

Machine Buster, that explained why the sentries seemed kind of fragile…and why the BLU Engineer seemed to dislike her more than most of the other REDs.

Weapon Jockey…Well, now she knew why she could hit so hard with a bat.

Eve Saver, thank goodness.

Security Evasion…That also explained some things with the BLU sentries.

Fresh Hair…Huh? That seemed kind of useless. Unless it turned her hair into a weapon, but hers was probably too short for something like that.

Anti-TB…She probably was given that intentionally as a Little Sister. It actually seemed like it'd be really useful if it weren't made from ADAM.

Slim-Down…Uh…That had something to do with making you skinnier? Actually, all her sisters seemed skinny no matter how much they ate. Julie rolled her eyes at so many people using a slimming tonic instead of getting some exercise.

ReJuvena…Something to do with rejuvenating? It sounded familiar anyway.

Julie blinked at the last item on the list: Unidentified. What did that mean? Wasn't this machine supposed to have a record of every manufactured plasmid and tonic? Wait. She didn't see the Cure or the Cure to the Cure. That's probably what it was. Yeah, Ma had made those all on her own so that wouldn't be on the list of official tonics.

Julie was also annoyed to note that there were no brain boosts but not surprised. She'd always had trouble with reading and schoolwork and the like. Maybe she'd pick one up if she had spare ADAM.

…She couldn't believe she just thought that. Maybe it wasn't as hard to become a splicer as she thought.

Julie decided not to get a brain boost unless she absolutely was stumped by something she couldn't get past otherwise. She turned on her heel and noticed another blinking audiovox half hidden under some rubble that she hadn't been able to see when she'd been walking by. She shrugged and picked it up.

"A recording device that will play back whatever you say to it," said a British woman.

"Yes, I quite prefer this version," said a British man. "Much less fragile."

"Agreed, less unwieldly as well. Likely due to the difference in time periods."

"Amazing how one can create automatons with no need for operators but continue to use antiquated technology in other aspects of life."

Julie tilted her head at the slightly odd recording before tossing it into the bag with the others and continuing on.


	12. Hello again

Julie had been walking along a hallway after killing a couple of splicers when her vision suddenly got fuzzy. She froze.

 _My mother knows you're here._

Julie relaxed as she realized it was just Eleanor. 'Yeah, I noticed.' After thinking for a moment she'd realized the woman over the intercom had probably been Sophia Lamb. 'Sort of reminds me of my boss.'

 _My condolences_

Julie shrugged. 'At least she's straight with how she feels about us. Is that all you wanted to tell me?'

 _No, it sounds as though you're lost. Do you need help getting around?_

'I don't really have a destination. I'm just wandering around, looking for Little Sisters. I probably will need to find a way to a different part of Rapture eventually though. Your mom will just cut off their access to the Medical Pavilion if I stay here.'

 _True. I'm surprised she hasn't done so already…Although I might be able to influence Little Sisters so that they head towards you._

Julie winced. 'Not all at once. Big Daddies are tough. I'll need some time between fights to recover.'

 _You'll also need to look out for the other Big Sisters._

Julie's hand went to her chest. 'Don't need to tell me twice. I need to come up with a plan for when I run into another one.'

 _If it helps, they should only show up after you remove a Little Sister from the Network._

'So when I take out a Big Daddy, I need to be ready to fight a Big Sister too. Great…'

 _I could try sending you additional gene tonics and weapons._

Julie smiled. 'That would be nice. All I've got right now are stabby things and a revolver.'

 _Oh, that won't do at all. I'll see what I can get to you on short notice… I have to go now. If I do this for too long, my mother will notice._

'Right. Talk to you later.' Julie's vision returned to normal. Julie considered calling her Ma, but decided it would be better to maintain radio silence for the moment.

There was groaning in the distance.

Julie started. That was another Big Daddy. Probably another Bouncer. She sniffed. Smelled like he had a Little Sister with him. Could she take him out? Could she handle the Big Sister that might show up?

And that was when Julie noticed a nearby Gatherer's Garden. How had she missed that? Talk about embarrassing. Julie went over and looked over the choices.

She wanted Telekinesis 2 or 3, but she didn't have quite enough ADAM for it…or anything else useful. She groaned. Looked like she'd just have to make do.


	13. The Bad Shepherd

Julie looked around for some more oxygen tanks. They weren't very difficult to find. It was actually kind of surprising that splicers hadn't done more with them.

She was gonna try combining the strategies she'd used with the last two: Hit him with Security Command and let the security whittle him down until she can finish him off with oxygen tanks and possibly Molotov cocktails if she grabbed the right chemicals from those labs. The only downside was that she couldn't take out the security, so she'd have to avoid them as best as she could, probably by using Scout a lot.

She really needed to come up with better plans.

Julie carefully started sneaking down the hallway where she'd heard the groaning doing her best to look out for cameras and shutdown switches.

Actually, avoiding security was surprisingly easy. Apparently she could be sneaky when she wasn't being a loudmouth…And she was wearing a disguise…Sort of like the Spies.

Ugh! Ew! No! Gross! Why would she even think that?!

Julie took a moment to freak out and shake her head to rid herself of that horrible, horrible thought. Both Spies were jerks. And RED Spy was sleeping with the BLU Scout's mom. And both kept making fun of her and saying rainbows make her cry.

The Pyro Goggles don't work properly on her! So sue her!

Julie groaned and stood up.

"I have found you."

And her freak out caught Lamb's attention. Just great.

"I will not pretend to know how you found your way to Rapture. But I can guess why you have come here."

Yeah, right.

"You think you are rescuing the children of Rapture."

Okay, maybe she did have an idea.

"You are not rescuing them. You are condemning them. I know what life is like on the surface. I lived through it. There is nothing for them."

Julie looked up at the ceiling in disbelief. Was she serious? Yeah, it could suck up there, but it sucked down here too. At least there weren't splicers up there…outside of her family.

"But down here, they are an essential part of the Rapture Family. They are the hope of the Family. If you think I will allow you to steal that hope, you are sorely mistaken."

Julie let out a short, hysterical laugh. She couldn't help it. This woman…couldn't be serious. Julie knew what it was like to be a Little Sister, knew that nothing could justify it. Lamb wasn't even using the produced ADAM to stabilize the splicers…

So what was she using it for?

The thought brought Julie up short. Lamb must want the ADAM for something, otherwise she wouldn't have gone to the trouble of abducting girls from the surface. Little Sisters were kind of useless outside of producing ADAM…or getting to certain places in Rapture that were impossible to access without them. Julie remembered those places, but she didn't think there was anything useful there. Besides, you'd only need one, and a regular kid would work just as well.

She'd have to remember to ask Eleanor at some point.

That musing done, Julie headshotted a couple of splicers trying to sneak up on her. Back to work.

Actually, there was a sudden swell of splicers from seemingly nowhere. Julie wondered if there was a connection to Lamb's lecture. Either way, she managed to kill the splicers without serious injury. She gave herself a shot of EVE though. Her head was getting a little fuzzy.

Wow, she was going to crash hard once this was all over, wasn't she?


	14. Fight smarter, not harder

It took about half an hour to find another Bouncer. The Bouncer wasn't with a Little Sister yet. Julie didn't let it bother her and threw a Security Command polyp at it. The Bouncer walked on, not bothered by the glowing blue substance covering it.

And then a turret fired at him. The Bouncer roared and smashed the turret.

Julie didn't know why she didn't think that would happen. Well, at least she wouldn't have to worry about getting spotted by security.

Julie followed the Bouncer for a while, occasionally lobbing another polyp if the glow started to fade. By the time it finally summoned a Little Sister, steam was hissing out of ruptured seams, along with a sickly-smelling yellow liquid. Julie decided to try and keep using Security Command for a little while. It was boring, but it worked. Eventually, the security took its toll, and the Bouncer finally collapsed and died.

Julie sighed and walked over to the sobbing Little Sister, curing her and picking her up. "M-Mister B…"

"I know. I'm sorry," said Julie. She really was. Julie backtracked to a vent she'd seen before and let the Little Sister crawl into it, still sniffling.

Even though it was the right thing to do, Julie felt awful about what she'd just done. She sighed and made her way back to the Big Daddy to scavenge his body for anything useful.


	15. Memories can be painful

Since she now had a decent amount of ADAM, Julie went back to the Gatherer's Garden. She didn't have enough for the more offensive plasmid's upgrades, but she had enough for the third level of Cyclone Trap. She had some ideas of what she could do if she could put them on walls and charge them with plasmids.

That done, Julie stepped back and looked around. Nothing in particularly interesting here. She could see if she could find another Little Sister, but she didn't want to risk running into a Big Sister again just yet.

 _"_ _I want to get out of this hospital."_

Julie started and spun around. There were two men walking down the hall, but she could see through them. _"Where would you go? There's only one hospital in Rapture."_

 _"_ _Dunno, I just know I can't stand anyone here anymore."_

 _"_ _Gee, thanks a lot…"_

The memory petered out. Julie shook her head. That was just a memory transferred to her from the ADAM. Honestly, it was amazing one hadn't popped up before now. Just…It had been a long time since one had caught her by surprise like that.

Then again…they'd been happening less and less as she got older.

Julie huffed and started walking again.


	16. Daddy's Little Girl

_How are things going?_

Julie jumped a bit at Eleanor's sudden presence. 'Okay. Just wandering around. Killing splicers. Looking for Little Sisters and anything useful.'

 _It doesn't bother you?_

'You're gonna have ta be more specific.'

 _Killing._

Julie paused and sighed. '…Look, Eleanor, I am not a good person.'

 _What do you mean?_

'I fight and kill people for a living. Given, most of the time it's a team that comes back with something like a Vita-chamber, but I have outright killed people who wouldn't be able to come back.'

 _Why?_ Eleanor sounded…confused.

'It pays good money.' Julie picked up a purse and frowned. Empty. She tossed it to the side. 'Dad kept all of us. It got expensive. I'm sure he did some horrible things to provide for us too before he got sick.'

 _Your father…Jack Ryan?_

'Wynard. We go by Wynard. Never Ryan.'

 _Mother has made him out as an avenging angel…but also a messianic figure._

Julie paused. 'I guess he was to us.'

Eleanor was silent. _What do you plan to do?_

'I didn't say before? Rescue all the Little Sisters. Take them to the surface. Get them back to their families, where they belong.'

 _But how will you go about that?_

'I'm pretty much making it up as I go along.'

 _That's dangerous._

'Yeah, well, I didn't know what the layout of Rapture would be like after all this time. Don't worry. I'm used to it.'

 _…_ _Take the next left._

Julie did so.

 _Straight, then right._

And there was a little red wagon. Like the previous one, it had two jars of fireflies. Between the two jars was a shotgun. Julie happily picked it up before realizing that this particular model could only hold two shells at a time. Well, she could fix that when she found a Power to the People station. 'Eleanor, you are an angel.'

 _Good luck_

Julie felt Eleanor retreat from her mind. Thus started Julie's quest to upgrade her new shotgun.


	17. Quest Completed

Finding a Power to the People station was harder than Julie thought it would be. Maybe it was because this was a hospital, but Julie couldn't really see that stopping Fontaine. Guy was driven, which was pretty much the only redeeming thing about him.

What to do, what to do? Julie absentmindedly blew a splicer's head off. Rapture was a pretty big place. It could take a while to find something if you didn't know where it was.

Julie noticed an audiovox and picked it up. "I officially hate my life." It was the same lady from those other tapes. Julie was mentally referring to her as the Irish Lady at this point. "I got recruited, deserted, and now everyone wants me dead. Even if I do survive…Well, I'm alive at the moment, and I got a weapon upgrade so I shouldn't have to use as many bullets. I'll figure out what to do once I get somewhere safe."

Julie perked up. It sounded like there was a Power to the People station nearby. Unless this lady had dropped the audiovox in a separate location. Nothing Julie could do in that case so she might as well look for it.

After going through a few rooms, she found the station half hidden behind some filing cabinets. It was lit up and still functional to her relief. She stuck her shotgun in it, causing it to activate and start up. It whirred and pulled the shotgun inside of it. A moment later a list appeared on the screen. The first choice was to saw off part of the double barrels to increase spray and damage. The second choice was an attachment to increase the clip size, which was what she chose. The third…Julie blinked. The third required the first two modifications before it could be added, but it would allow buckshot to electrocute the enemy. That was useful. She'd have to try and get that.

The station whirred for a few minutes before spitting the shotgun back out, now sporting an attachment on either side to hold extra shells. Julie immediately loaded the weapon, feeling much better now that she wouldn't have to reload it as often.

So, now what was she supposed to do?


	18. Good News

Rapture being such a mess meant it was tricky to get around. Julie kept coming to dead ends due to rubble and finding bulwark doors with water leaking from the seams.

In fact, Julie was pretty sure she'd gone through as much of the Medical Pavilion as she could. She was going to have to backtrack. Maybe there was something she'd missed. Her dad had backtracked after getting electrical gel to take out Big Daddies. He hadn't been crazy enough to take on a Big Daddy without some kind of advantage. Julie wasn't sure what it said about her that she'd been willing to tangle with one shortly after arriving in Rapture.

She wouldn't need to worry about that if she kept running into dead ends. Julie groaned as she realized she'd passed that sparking health station three minutes ago. How had she been going in a circle? She was turning right _and_ left! Why didn't they have any signs letting people know where to go? She'd probably still get lost even if this was a functioning hospital.

An arrow appeared on the floor in front of her and stretched around the corner before disappearing.

Julie froze up. What was that? It didn't look like any ADAM hallucination she'd had before. Well, it was probably a one-time thing.

The arrow reappeared and stretched along the same route.

…The heck? Did she just have the same hallucination twice? That'd never happened before. 'Course, she didn't see how that could be a memory for anyone.

And it was back. Was this thing going to keep showing up until she followed it? She waited a few moments. The arrow reappeared again. Julie threw up her arms in frustration and decided to just follow it.


	19. Bad News

Julie had been following the arrow(s?) for a few minutes now, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The arrow didn't seem to have an end. She wasn't compelled to follow it. She'd veered off to examine something interesting with no issues. The arrow just readjusted and waited for her to finish whatever she was doing.

Speaking of which…She'd decided to explore a nearby room off the path and found something glowing behind a vent. Julie looked around and then yanked the vent cover off. It was a gene tonic…With a picture of a Big Daddy on it. She'd never seen any gene tonics that mentioned them. Julie read the description and blinked. She'd never heard of 'Big Game Hunter'. According to the description it would cause her to deal more damage against Big Daddies.

Julie briefly wondered if it would work against Big Sisters. Then she remembered that she was technically a Big Sister. Maybe it would be a good idea to ask how this worked before using it. She grabbed her radio. "Hey, Ma?"

"Hm?"

"I just found a gene tonic called 'Big Game Hunter'. Is it safe for me to use?"

"Where on Earth did you get that? It's one of the few tonics Ryan made illegal to produce."

"I found it in a vent. I guess someone decided to put it there for safe keeping and never came back for it," explained Julie. "It'd be useful."

"It works by producing pheromones that react with a specific form of ADAM found only in Big Daddies to make it so muscles absorb less force from physical attacks and the like, which means the organs sustain more damage than they would otherwise. It won't affect Big Sisters so it should be safe for you to use it. If it does cause you problems, using a Gene Bank to make it dormant should remedy the situation."

"Okay, well, I will be going after Big Daddies…" Julie paused and glanced at the stubborn arrow. "Hey, have you ever heard of ADAM hallucinations that look like arrows? I've been seeing one for a few minutes. I was lost so I tried following it. Not sure where it's going." Julie waited for Ma to respond, but she didn't say anything. "Ma?"

"I know of one other such occurrence: Your father…due to the mind control plasmid."

Julie's whole world screeched to a stop. It was only when she felt the bit of something in her side that she came out of it and reflexively fired in the direction it came from. Once Julie made sure the splicers were dead, she turned her attention back to her radio. "But that-that's not possible. I'm the only one who-" Something occurred to Julie that made her heart stop. "Oh God, what if one of those tonics I found had a fake label?!"

"Would you kindly sit down?"

"Ma!"

"Did you sit down?"

Julie looked down even though she could feel she was standing. "No…that's good."

"I believe only Suchong knew how to produce that particular plasmid. I suppose someone else could figure it out…No, I'm sure we destroyed the notes." Ma sighed over the radio. "Of course, I have no idea how many doses he produced."

"Well, is there any way to fix this?" asked Julie.

"Not right now…I have no idea if any of the cure still exists. We would have to go through Suchong's apartment, but I'm not sure we'll have the opportunity."

Julie let out a frustrated growl. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"I guess…pay attention to what people say? See if any phrases are being repeated and if you are responding strangely to anything you hear," suggested Ma. "If you do find that you are acting against your will, then throw your radio away and find a way to avoid hearing anything."

Julie didn't think her Ma understood how important listening was to surviving ambushes, but she could get rid of the radio, and she was pretty sure Lamb would have used a trigger phrase by now if she could. "Okay, I should probably start moving again."

Julie hung up the radio and studied the gene tonic as she stubbornly walked away from the arrow. Was it a really a valuable gene tonic that would help her fight Big Daddies or was it something dangerous in disguise? She needed to think this through.

Her dad had used gene tonics he'd found lying around. He hadn't been affected any worse than a typical splicer. He'd already had poison in him though. Fontaine hadn't had to trick him into that. Ryan could've still slipped him something nasty…but didn't. He'd had enough ADAM. Maybe he hadn't had an opportunity? That made some sense. Her dad had arrived with no warning. He'd been here for a while before killing Ryan. Was it not enough time for to make some sort of ADAM trap? Ryan had lost Suchong and Ma by then.

And it suddenly occurred to Julie that Ryan couldn't make new plasmids or gene tonics without them.

She went over the steps to modifying ADAM. It's harvested from Little Sisters in some way. It's modified to produce some sort of specific effect. It was usually modified by a machine that's preprogrammed with the data and information of pre-existing plasmids and tonics. People with the knowledge and skill could modify it without a machine, but creating something new was nearly impossible unless you were a genius at genetics. Ma had been very good at creating new plasmids and tonics. Suchong had been able to understand and build on her work. It didn't sound like anyone else would be able to figure out how to make new genes from scratch.

So…Probably nothing new. A mind control plasmid was still possible but very unlikely. Someone could have still switched the label so that it was a completely different tonic, but any tonic could be useful if you knew how to use it.

Decision made, Julies stopped, unpacked the syringe included with the tonic, and carefully drew the tonic into it. After making sure there were no air bubbles she injected it into her side. Julie winced as she instantly felt lightheaded. And then she heard footsteps.

Julie immediately lashed out with a wall of fire. There was some surprised shouting, so someone _was_ there. Julie made another fire wall as her vision started to clear. There were two splicers on fire. Julie hit one with Electrobolt before slicing the head of the other one. Then she impaled the shocked one through their neck and out through the spine.

Julie let out a sigh of relief as she pushed the splicer off her harpoon. She really needed to start looking around before she injected a new plasmid/tonic. She could have been jumped by a lot more than just two. It would be nice if someone was there to watch her back.

Julie wilted. She was starting to miss RED, if only because she never had to fight alone with them. She was surprised to realize that she was missing other things like Demo's drunken antics or Medic's insane laughter when he activated an ubercharge or Engie's guitar playing.

She didn't even know if she would see them again.


	20. The two have far too much in common

"Why did you decide to come to Rapture?"

Julie ignored Lamb's question. It was second nature. It was similar to the Administrator yelling at them during matches. RED would listen for anything useful and continue on their way.

It wasn't like she could answer anyway.

"I know you did not come here by coincidence. You are too methodical in your actions, too comfortable with the phenomena unique to Rapture."

Julie ignored her as she reluctantly followed the arrow. Trying to ignore it had caused her to go in circles so she'd eventually given up and started following it again. It had led her back to the room where she'd accidentally caused a fight between a Big Daddy and splicers. She was surprised to see the Big Daddy had been killed along with several of the splicers. She started checking to see if they had something useful.

"You must have known Rapture was here. Ryan did his best to prevent anyone from leaving, but some were able to escape. I'm sure at least one was able to reach some form of civilization."

Well, she wasn't wrong. Julie stuck her loot in her bag and looked towards a large hole in the wall that she hadn't noticed before. If it had been there before. Big Daddies could do a lot of damage. She sent a Scout through it.

"The question is how did you find out? Were you directly contacted by a former resident? Or did you hear rumors that were so enticing you just had to see if they were true?"

She didn't think that Julie was from Rapture. That was probably a good thing. Julie wasn't sure what Lamb would do if she knew the truth. Julie decided not to think about it and walked through the hole to more hallways. Great. She never realized how boring it was walking around Rapture…

"Did you come to Rapture to satisfy your curiosity? Did you come to gain power? To gain money? Or…Perhaps there is something more…"

Julie sent out another Scout to make sure there weren't any splicers that would catch her by surprise. She started going through the doors, occasionally needing to shoot a splicer. It was a few minutes before she realized that Lamb had fallen silent. Probably still watching though.

Julie found an audiovox, which she started playing. "Personally, I don't see why everyone is worried," said a man's voice. "We're doctors. It takes years to train us, and you can't replace skill and experience. We're far from expendable, not like the others recruited to fight Atlas's army. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if business picked up. We could certainly use it."

Julie gave the audiovox a disgusted look and promptly taped over the message. "So some of these egghead doctors thought they were safe. Even thought they'd get a bit more business while the rest of Rapture was killing itself. You know what happened to them? Just as spliced up and crazy as the rest of 'em."

She slammed the audiovox down and left.


	21. Delegation is only common sense

Julie had continued to follow the arrow and finally found a functioning door out of the Medical Pavilion…even if she had to electrocute the control panel. The sign indicated it went to the Vulcan's Forge district. Julie couldn't recall ever going there as a Little Sister, but it sounded like there'd been a high accident rate when the factories had been running. She was definitely staying away from the heavy machinery.

Julie walked through the entrance and looked around. There was a punch clock on the wall, along with a couple of punch cards. Julie grabbed one and looked at it curiously.

"Think you can come in here and take whatever you want?"

Julie dropped the card and spun around.

"Think I'll just let a sack of slag like you walk all over me?"

Wait…Was that coming from the intercom?

"Just try. I'll show you what happens to bastards like you."

That was definitely a threat. Julie waited for him to say something else, but he seemed done for the moment. Who the heck was that? Did Lamb go on break or something? Maybe Eleanor knew…except Eleanor had always been the one to contact her so far. How was Julie supposed to contact her? Think hard at her?

That didn't make sense, but she'd try it anyway.

After a few minutes of thinking 'Eleanor' as hard as she could, she got a response. _Julie?_

Julie brightened. 'Whoa! It worked!'

 _What was that?_

'I…thought hard…at you.'

 _…_ _That seems far too simple to work._

Julie shrugged. 'It's what I did. Anyway…I'm in Vulcan's Forge, and an angry man just threatened me over the intercom. What's going on?'

 _…_ _I really should have realized you wouldn't know about that. Mother is extremely intelligent, and she learned from Ryan's mistakes. She doesn't try to control every part of Rapture by herself. She appointed her most loyal followers to run various districts. They still report to her and have to do as she says, but they use their own judgement in the day to day running of their districts._

'…That actually makes sense,' admitted Julie. 'So who was that?'

 _Jacob Norris. He was a very talented welder. He was disillusioned and unhappy about how the working class was treated so he was staunchly against Ryan. He was also part of a test group for Sinclair Solutions that performed trial runs on experimental weapons, plasmids, and gene tonics._

'So, he's heavily spliced, really crazy, and really dangerous.' Julie took a moment to shoot a splicer. 'I'll try to avoid him.'

 _You can't._

'Huh?'

 _He has a genetic key. He'll use it to lock you in place and bar your path._

'…But I don't even know where I'm going!'

 _Then he'll lock down all the exits._

Julie glanced back at the door she'd come out of. The control panel was malfunctioning on this side too. She stepped over to the door, which failed to open. She hit the control panel with an Electrobolt, which still didn't work.

"You don't break into my house and then run. You've already made your bed."

Julie stepped away from the door. 'Guess I can't retreat to the Medical Pavilion. Why doesn't that one have someone in charge of it?'

 _Most splicers are too afraid of Steinman to stay there for more than a few hours._

Julie blinked. 'But Dad killed him…'

 _I know. He is still feared even in death._

True. He was part of the reason why Julie didn't find Medic as scary as she probably should. 'Right, well, I'll try to get out without running into Jacob Norris, but if I do run into him, I'll get the genetic key from him.'

 _Good. Be very careful. From here on out things will be much more difficult._

Julie nodded as Eleanor withdrew from her mind. She looked out at the poorly lit factory floor and the maze of catwalks.

…She was gonna end up completely lost.


	22. That's convenient

Past the entrance of Vulcan's Forge it was mostly catwalks and ladders looking over heavy machinery. Julie Scouted down to look for anything out of the ordinary but nothing caught her eye. The next couple of rooms of machinery were bare as well.

The fourth had a Little Sister harvesting a corpse. Julie glanced at the Big Daddy: A Rosie. That was tricky. She couldn't just keep her distance. Maybe she could use Scout to keep it from noticing her? It was going to tire her out though…

Well, she had to do something. She activated Scout and walked over to the Rosie. She wished there were some security cameras here. That would help damage the Rosie. She'd have to settle for Incinerate.

Actually…

Julie put down a few cyclone traps between her and the Rosie…And got forced back into her body.

Okay, this could take a while.

She sent Scout down again. The Little Sister was finishing up her harvesting so this would be it for the moment. Julie pointed and used Incinerate on the Rosie.

The Rosie roared and charged in the direction the fire had come from, right into a cyclone trap. He was sent a couple feet into the air before falling and landing on his feet with a grunt.

Well, that hadn't worked as well as she'd hoped. Julie stepped back (out of habit) as the Rosie ran around, triggering another cyclone trap along the way. He was still on fire. She'd wait for it to go out before using Incinerate again and going back to her body.

"Look Mr. B! Big Sister is watching!"

Julie started as the Little Sister waved at her body and ran over…away from the Rosie.

Julie quickly set the Rosie on fire again, returned to her body, jumped down, picked up the giggling Little Sister, climbed back up, and ran before the Rosie could realize what happened and chase after her.

"What the fuck was that tin can?!" was all Norris had to say on the matter.

A roar of rage came from behind them, but it was far enough away that there was a reasonable distance between the two. Was this actually going to work?

"Where are we going?" asked the Little Sister.

"Mama Tenenbaum."

"Who's that?"

"She's my…" Little Sisters were taught to be distrustful towards maternal figures. "Friend. She's a nice lady." Julie activated the Cure as she noted a vent nearby. "Just follow your nose, okay?"

"Okay!" Julie walked over to the vent and let the Little Sister climb into it. That was one more down, and…Too many more to go.


	23. There's always too many

Julie had managed to spot a Power to the People station…behind a bunch of heavy machinery. She cautiously made her way through the machinery and to the station. "Okay…so far, so good…" She placed her shotgun in it. Several moments later, she had a sawed off shotgun, which was good because the sound had attracted several splicers. "Fuck."

Julie started running circles around the splicers to throw off their aim. She alternated between Electrobolt and Incinerate before getting in close to shoot them in the head with the shotgun. The shotgun ran out of buckshot so she growled and lashed out at the nearest splicer with her harpoon. He gurgled…and he was stuck on the harpoon. She just used him as a human shield while she set the other two on fire to distract them. She kicked him off the harpoon and ran forward to impale the other two splicers before they could recover their wits.

Julie let out a sigh as she reloaded the shotgun. She wished she could backtrack to the Medical Pavilion where she knew the location of some Gatherer's Gardens. Maybe even run into a Little Sister again. Maybe she could try backtracking after she killed Norris and got his genetic key…Or it might be better to go a bit further before heading back. She'd decide once she got to that point. She'd probably find a Gatherer's Garden before then, so she wouldn't need to go back for that. Julie nodded. She'd wait to get some more powerful plasmids and additional gene tonics before she tried heading back to the Medical Pavilion.

Julie sent a Scout around the corner. Still no Gatherer's Garden. She was starting to think she wouldn't find any in this area…which made sense now that she thought about it. It was a factory. People had been meant to work here, not buy plasmids and shoot up.

Julie made an annoyed face and continued to walk forwards.


	24. Machine guns are awesome

Was it just Julie or was Lamb being…lazy? That didn't sound right. Lamb was probably paying attention to Julie, but why wasn't she doing anything? Julie guessed she could just let Norris decide what to do with her, but that seemed…iffy. He was a splicer. Splicers were insane…unless they got some ADAM. Maybe Lamb gave Norris some ADAM so he could think straight for a while and get rid of Julie. That sort of made sense, but what else did Lamb have to do with her time?

Julie's musings came to a halt as she heard a familiar clicking sound behind her. She immediately jumped as high as she could using several Cyclone traps as she twisted around.

Splicers with machine guns. Well, she had wanted a machine gun.

She hit them with an Electrobolt. Then while they were twitching put several Cyclone Traps under them. As they shot up, she fell down and set them on fire. Then shot them up again. The splicers finally hit the ground, and Julie quickly shot them in the head to get rid of any survivors of the attack.

That…had actually been kind of tiring. Looked like using Telekinesis like that took a lot of effort. She should probably hold off on using fancy moves until she got the upgrade, but that was okay because now she had a machine gun.

Julie found the least damaged machine gun and removed bullets from the others. She'd find some armor piercing rounds, and she might have an easier time next time she had to fight a Big Daddy or Sister.

Of course, first she had to get used to using a machine gun first. She pointed far away (to avoid ricochet) and pulled the trigger. She wasn't braced properly and her arms went flying. She quickly stopped, properly braced herself, and promptly started firing again. Her arms didn't go flying, but it was harder to keep the gun in place than she would have expected. Something about the casings struck her as off so she picked one up.

Julie's mouth fell open. This was minigun ammo! No wonder the kickback was so bad! Why had they even modified the machine guns to shoot minigun ammo? Regular ammo would work just as well. The only reason she could think of to use minigun ammo was to try and get through something tough enough that normal bullets couldn't get through.

Julie paused and looked at her armored suit. Oh.

Well, considering the kickback, she would definitely need both hands, which meant she'd have to use plasmids without hand movements, which was possible but difficult. Julie didn't think she'd have the time for that in a serious fight. She scowled under her helmet. She would need to stop firing to use plasmids, and even if that only took a few seconds, that could be enough for her to be seriously injured. She was pretty sure her dad had mentioned an upgrade that lessened kickback in machine guns. Maybe that would let her use it with one hand.

Julie wasn't sure why she found the idea of shooting a gun with one hand and plasmids with the other was so appealing, but she figured she could justify that it was effective. Until then she'd stick with the revolver and shotgun.


	25. What measure is a human?

_"_ _Careful! You don't want that to drop!"_

Julie curiously watched as several brain ghosts messed with the machinery below her. Or the brain ghost machinery? It looked like it had fallen at some point.

 _"_ _I know I know. I've worked these machines for years. I know what I'm doing!"_

 _"_ _Working 'em and taking 'em apart are two different things. You stick your hand in the wrong place or remove the wrong bolt and-"_

The brain ghost machinery suddenly fell right on the brain ghost person under it. The memory ended as he screamed in agony. Julie could see the remains of a body still under that particular piece of machinery. It must have been after everything went to shit if it was never repaired.

Julie was suddenly overcome by the feeling someone was watching her. She quickly looked around but didn't see anyone. Of course, it could be a Houdini splicer. Or a splicer who could turn invisible. Or hidden cameras. She couldn't really do anything about that last one…that she knew of anyway.

She Scouted around the corner and hit a couple of splicers with Security Command. No attacks. No security. She used a quick Electrobolt to stun one before being sucked back to her body and jumping out to shoot them in the head. She quickly looted them and continued on.

There looked to be some offices up ahead. She Scouted them quickly, set a few splicers on fire, and then started physically exploring the rooms. Some money, some bullets, some food that she ate, an audiovox that she put on. "There are leaks everywhere! Ugh, I know Ryan wanted to build Rapture somewhere that would make it difficult to find, but why couldn't he build it in a mountain range or use some sort of camouflage? Then we wouldn't have to worry about drowning as the maintenance men die!"

He had a point. Ryan could have built it in the sky…On second thought that was just as terrifying and impractical. If she found a city in the sky, Julie would burn it to the ground based on principle.

Julie abruptly found what looked like a breakroom. It was pretty small. She was pretty sure it was supposed to be bigger with the number of workers that would normally be here. There was a sink, two different types of vending machines, a few tables and chairs, a health station that she quickly broke, and…a Gatherer's Garden.

…She guessed that made sense? This was probably the only place where it was safe to splice. It looked a bit beat up. Julie wondered if it was safe to use. She probably wouldn't find another Gatherer's Garden until she left the factory, and she _was_ going to have to fight Norris at some point.

Julie checked the prices. She'd been right about Telekinesis costing 250 units, and she had…100 units. "Why is this the most expensive thing available?" Julie felt like hitting the machine just for that, but managed to hold back. She took a couple of deep breaths while she considered her options. Should she continue saving up for the Telekinesis or go ahead and buy something for her upcoming fight with Norris?

Well, she had no idea when she was gonna run into him, so she'd buy one more plasmid. Looking at the available plasmids, she guessed Insect Swarm or Decoy would be a good idea. After thinking for a moment she decided Insect Swarm was more her style and bought the Level 1 plasmid. Now she had 40 units of ADAM, which meant she had a long way to go to get enough ADAM for Telekinesis 3. She injected the Insect Swarm plasmid and…nothing. That was weird. She experimentally tried to summon bees out of her hand, bracing herself for the pain.

Nothing.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

Julie took out her radio. "Ma, I've got a bit of a problem."

"What sort of problem? I've managed to find some bullets."

"Uh, no, not like that. I just got a new plasmid, but I can't use it. Is something wrong?"

"…How many plasmids do you have?"

"Let's see…" Cyclone Trap, Telekinesis, Incinerate, Electrobolt, Scout, Security Command, and now Insect Swarm. "This makes seven."

"I see. Honestly, I'm surprised this hasn't come up before. You must have absorbed quite a few additional plasmid slots."

Julie made a face. "What?"

"You see, most people can only naturally access two or three plasmids at a time. Adding any more will cause the other plasmids to become inaccessible due to epigenetics shifting the DNA available for transcription."

"Uh huh." Julie wasn't a genius, but growing up with Tenenbaum for a mother meant she knew enough about genetics that she recognized the terms, even if she couldn't explain how they worked. "So…How do we get around it?"

"We developed a…well it isn't exactly a gene tonic. It ended up with the name plasmid slot for reasons I was never able to comprehend. Using it will insert junk DNA so that it is easier to access the plasmid genes of interest. Using more of them will insert more junk DNA, which will make it easier to access even more plasmids. The gene tonics are a similar situation. Most humans can only access three at a time without buying similarly named gene tonic slots. Placing plasmids and gene tonics in the same location can cause them to interfere with each other, so we couldn't design a single slot enhancement that would work on both."

Julie swallowed. "…Oh."

"After you buy a plasmid slot you should be able to activate the new plasmid," continued Ma. "You should check to see how many genes tonics you can use before you need to buy additional slots when you get the chance. You might inject a gene tonic that's unable to activate and not realize it."

"Right. Thanks." Julie paused. The lecture had caused Julie to think of something that she had questioned far too many times. "Ma, I'm…human, right?"

"…Yes."

Julie gripped the radio a bit harder than she meant to. "Right. 'Course I am." Her eyes were tearing up. "Gotta go. I'll talk to ya later."

"Of course, my brave little one."

Julie hooked the radio back on her belt, pulled her helmet off to rub at her eyes and leaned her head against the glass of the Gatherer's Garden for several moments.

She was a monster, wasn't she?

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to curse the unfairness of her life. Maybe a few months ago she would have, but now along with being a monster she was a RED, and she knew she couldn't afford the time or noise. She'd already spent too much time on this existential crisis.

So instead she put her helmet back on and started looking for a Gene Bank.


	26. You're not paranoid

...if they're really out to get you.

This was too easy.

Okay, maybe 'easy' wasn't the best word. What Julie was doing _was_ hard. She had to do this by herself with only some long distance assistance from her Ma and Eleanor, and she was worried about hacking and/or tracking so she was avoiding asking her Ma for help unless absolutely necessary. She also had to deal with splicers regularly because even after almost a decade there were still people living down here. Lamb must have managed to get them to stop killing each other. And then there were the Big Daddies and Big Sisters Julie had to go through to get to the Little Sisters. It was tough.

But it was still too easy…Lamb was smart. She could still plan. No way would she just let Julie traipse through Rapture while curing Little Sisters. Lamb should have thought to do something more than just throw splicers at an intruder. She'd set traps, maybe flood an area or something like that. It made Julie jumpy and nervous and wishing she had a diving suit that didn't have a fucking huge hole in it.

Julie belatedly realized she was humming a tune. It wasn't one she recognized off the top of her head. She stopped, not wanting to attract any splicers.

And that was when she heard the groaning.

Julie thought it was a Big Daddy for a moment before realizing it didn't sound right. What was that? And where was it coming from? Ahead? Behind? Below? Above? It was echoing too much for Julie to tell. Was it safe to keep moving or should she stay where she was?

Her question was answered when the walkway above fell towards her. Julie instinctively threw a Cyclone Trap above her head, which moved the walkway just enough that it only glanced her side rather than falling on top of her. It still hurt like a bitch. And now the walkway under her was collapsing. Julie grabbed at what was left of the rail, but her hand quickly slipped off.

She fell.


	27. Not for the faint of heart

Julie woke up suddenly and in pain. Ow. She groaned. How long had she been unconscious? However long it had been, it was too long. She started groping for a first aid kit. Her head hurt something awful.

She could hear someone walking around. Someones? Either way, it was bad for her. She kept looking for the first aid kit.

"Is this it?"

"No, that's a beam."

"Is this it?"

"That's another beam."

"Is this it?"

"Does it look like a person?"

Okay, so at least one was thinking somewhat straight. Julie's hand closed around a first aid kit that she tugged out. Oh, wow, her shoulder really hurt. She clumsily popped the first aid kit and fumbled for the hypo.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"I heard something."

Fuck. She tried to remove the cap, but her fingers weren't working properly for some reason. She used a weak telekinetic pull to get the cap off. After a two second debate on whether she should risk an air embolism or try to get the air out she decided the splicers were too close to waste time and just injected as much as she safely could. She let out a sigh of relief as the injection partially repaired her injuries. It was enough that she could move again at least. She didn't get up quite yet and played dead. Footsteps came closer and closer.

"Is this it?"

"Yes."

Julie threw electricity at them. She jumped up while they were still stunned and tore open their throats. A bullet hit her. She use a Cyclone Trap to throw the lone surviving shooter into the air before shooting him with her own gun. She got ready to inject another first aid hypo but froze when she looked down.

There was a piece of rebar sticking out of her abdomen.

"How does it feel to know you're going to die, slag?"

The rebar was several inches away from her side. Julie wiggled it. It stung a bit and felt stuck. She felt her back. Yeah, it had gone through.

"Because that's what's going to happen."

Fuck. Julie was no doctor. She had no idea how much damage the rebar had done. All she knew was that it had missed her spine. She tried to recall that picture of the human body from school. The small intestines were definitely there…Maybe her bladder and her uterus? She thought they might be lower. Maybe her hip bone? She could move her legs normally, and she thought that was a good sign. So just her intestines then? Probably. Hopefully.

"That's what you deserve."

It probably wouldn't be safe to just remove it, especially since the earlier first aid hypo had caused her skin and who knew what else to close around it. She didn't really think she could just leave it in there though. She still needed to fight, and the weight and pain would definitely throw her off. So if she had to choose between dying later from some sort of complication in her intestines or dying now because she couldn't move correctly…She'd die later.

"And no one will give a rat's shit that you're gone."

Decision made, Julie took out another first aid kit, stuck the needle about half an inch from the rebar, and sat down against the wall. She gripped the rebar with her left hand, took a deep breath, and pulled.

Oh God that hurt.

Julie had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. The rebar hadn't even moved that much. She pulled again. There was a sucking-splorching sound and her insides were not supposed to feel like that. She'd pulled the rebar out 2 maybe 3 inches, and she could taste blood but she wasn't sure if that was because she'd bit through her lip or was bleeding internally. She pulled. She could feel blood leaking down her back, and it hurt so much. She pulled. She wanted to use the first aid hypo and make the pain stop, but she couldn't. She pulled, and the rebar popped out. It literally made a popping sound. The rebar tumbled from her hand and she clumsily and shakily pressed the plunger on the first aid hypo.

Julie stayed leaning against the wall until the pain faded. She didn't even remove the syringe. She saw a bullet hit the ground. Oh. Right. She got shot. She'd completely forgotten. She could taste salt, her face was wet, and her nose was clogged. She finally pulled out the syringe and let it fall to the floor. She glanced at where the rebar had been. There was a noticeable mark. It would leave a scar. Nothing she could do about it.

She had no idea how she would explain any new scars to Medic. Maybe she could lie and say they'd always been there. He never made them wear hospital gowns during examinations.

Julie shook her head. She'd been in one spot for too long. She had to move. Norris knew she was still alive. He'd be sending more splicers after her soon.

Julie looked around. She was on the factory floor. The walkways a couple of stories above and higher were damaged or gone. She should be able to get back up there, but it might be safer to stay on the factory floor. Of course, they could still drop stuff on her, but at least she wouldn't fall again, even if she had to worry about machinery.

Julie glanced at the arrow darting along the floor. She'd been lost even before falling off the walkway. She honestly had no idea where she was or where she was supposed to go. She didn't see how following it would make her situation any worse.

Julie huffed and started walking along the route of the arrow.


	28. Why did this have to happen?

Most of the splicers Julie was killing were dressed like welders.

It was only in the factory. There'd been all sorts in the Medical Pavilion. She guessed they wandered here due to memories. Welders would have been working here before, right? Maybe they were actually doing some sort of work. Someone had to be producing equipment to keep Rapture running, and someone had to be around to oversee their work.

Julie belatedly wondered if killing so many welders would result in Rapture finally breaking down. Then again just killing as many splicers as possible seemed likely to do that. What had the population been before? 18,000 or so? Unless they weren't just kidnapping kids from the surface, but that would be a bit much and kind of inefficient. Newbies wouldn't have the experience of older splicers and wouldn't last very long.

Julie abruptly heard groaning. She thought it was another trap and ducked into a hallway before realizing that wasn't machinery or any of the surrounding structures. A quick sniff confirmed her suspicions. A Big Daddy was just ahead, probably another Rosie.

Julie set up a few Cyclone traps around herself before Scouting ahead. If it was just a Big Daddy, she would happily leave him alone and continue on her way. If there was a Little Sister she'd have to prepare to take him on, along with a Big Sister to be safe.

In the next room with machinery the Rosie was ambling along after a Little Sister. There was also a security camera and a Power to the People station nearby. Well…That was convenient. She threw a Security Command polyp at the Rosie and returned to her body as the security camera started calling flying turrets.

"Oh, so _now_ you decide to fight 'em face to face?" complained Norris.

Julie made sure she was out of the line of fire and ran over to the 'Power to the People' station. Now that she thought about it, the camera was positioned to spot anyone who tried to use the station. Maybe it _had_ been a trap at some point. She tossed another Security polyp at the Rosie to be safe and placed the machine gun in the upgrade slot.

Yeah, she wanted to be able to shoot electrified buckshot, but right now lots of armor piercing rounds would be better. She quickly stepped away as the machine started to work on upgrading her machine gun. She started switching the ammo in her pistol and took a look at the Rosie. Looks like he'd managed to destroy the security camera and the turrets that had appeared. He had some visible damage, but he didn't look too badly hurt. The Little Sister was staring at her, but was being encouraged to move forward by the Rosie.

Julie's machine gun was spat back out. She grabbed it, switched out the normal ammo for armor piercing rounds, switched out the buckshot in the shotgun for phosphorus buckshot, and then threw an Electrobolt. Then Incinerate. Then Electrobolt again. Then she started firing the machine gun. She had to run as the Rosie had recovered by then and was returning fire, but the recoil reducer was doing its job so she was firing a lot more accurately than she would be otherwise. The Little Sister was running around shouting about stars and birdies.

Yes, that was what they saw during fights. Julie wasn't sure why.

The machine gun ran out of ammo, but so did the Rosie's rivet gun. He immediately went to reload. Julie hit him with an Electrobolt and fired with her revolver while he tried to reload. Now she could see that the armor piercing rounds really were going through the armor about half the time. Great!

She set the Rosie on fire as she started running around to dodge his return fire. She hastily reloaded her machine gun, ignoring some glancing blows from the rivets. She turned and opened fire again. The Rosie had wised up and was moving around to dodge the gunfire as well. She was gonna run out of bullets at this rate.

Well, there was one thing she could try. She hoped she could pull it off. She was no Demoman. She braced her right arm as much as she could, even trying to use some telekinesis to hold her arm in place, and removed her left hand from the gun. Her aim consequently worsened. The Rosie didn't change his movement though, so she was able to throw the proximity mine in his path. The Rosie immediately set it off.

The blast force did catch Julie a bit, but she had gotten used to dealing with explosions by then (Thank you Demos.) and managed to keep from being thrown off balance, which let her toss another Incinerate at the Big Daddy before she started firing her machine gun again. The Rosie was starting to falter. It shouldn't take much more. Too bad she only had the one proximity mine. Maybe she could…

She jumped. Double jumped. Used another Cyclone Trap to send her flying towards the Rosie. She was fully prepared and had pulled out her shotgun. She landed feet first on the Rosie's shoulders and fired a shotgun blast into his face before pushing off and landing several feet away. The phosphorus buckshot exploded.

That did it. The Rosie collapsed onto the floor. "Useless tin can!" shouted Norris

The Little Sister ran over to him. "Mr. B!"

Julie winced as the Little Sister tried to wake up the Rosie. That was never gonna get any easier. She quickly picked up the Little Sister and started looking for a vent.

 _That's four now._

'Yeah, wasn't too bad that time. I'll have to see if I can upgrade the shotgun. Hey, you got any idea how many Little Sisters there are?'

 _Forty._

"Aw Hell."

 _Don't worry. Soon, you'll have help._

Julie blinked in confusion. 'What do you mean?'

 _I'm going to see if I can slip supplies to you at the next Gatherer's Garden. It'll have to be when you're there because I included some ADAM._

'How'd you get that?' Julie asked incredulously.

 _Sometimes the Little Sisters produce a little extra. I've been having them hide the extra, and it's added up. It's not much, maybe 80 units._

'Hey, that's as much as I get from a Cured Little Sister.' And combined with this one that would be…240 units if she was keeping track of it as well as she thought she was. Looked like it wouldn't take as long to get her Telekinesis 3 as she thought. 'Every little bit helps.'

 _There's one more thing…_

'Yeah?'

 _I've hacked the Vita-chambers._

That was shocking. Julie knew how heavy the defenses on them were, and for good reason. They would be a big game changer if someone could get them working and get around whatever it was that only let the Vita-chambers bring back Andrew Ryan and close relatives. 'What're you gonna do with them?'

 _I'm going to introduce my father's genetic material to it and bring him back, and I'm going to make sure my mother can_ never _hurt him again._

'Your father?' Julie frowned. 'Do you mean your biological father or…'

 _My original Big Daddy Protector. Mother had a follower use Hypnotize on him, made him kill himself right in front of me._

"Shit." Seeing a Big Daddy die was traumatic even in Little Sister La La Land. What did it look like when one was forced to commit suicide? '…What model was he?'

 _An Alpha, one of the first functioning ones._

'Will he be sane? You know how they got when their Little Sisters were taken from them.'

 _…_ _I am fairly certain he will be fine. It may even undo the programming done on him when he was turned into a Big Daddy._

'Great.' Julie couldn't argue that having an Alpha that was capable of respawning on their side would be awesome. 'Any chance you can dial me in too?' she asked as she finally saw a vent.

 _Sorry, I'll only be able to do this once before the Vita-chamber defenses activate. It could take days, even weeks to hack into the system again._

'Great…Still gotta stay alive then.' Julie placed the Little Sister on the floor and Cured her. "There you go."

And then an all too familiar scream split the air. Julie paled under her helmet. 'Big Sister, gotta go!' "Okay, in the vent, go, go, go!"

The Little Sister started climbing. Julie set up several Cyclone Traps around herself before injecting herself with her last first aid kit hypo and an EVE hypo as she heard another scream that was considerably closer this time. She reloaded her machine gun. She reloaded her shotgun. She reloaded her revolver. She wished someone was there to help her. She'd even take one of Engie's base sentries.

The scream came from right behind her. Julie spun and saw the Big Sister leaping at her. Fortunately, the Cyclone Trap went off. Julie quickly hit her with an electrobolt, switched to her shotgun, and started firing off phosphorus buck before the Big Sister recovered enough to start advancing on her.

The only good thing about this being in a hallway was that the Big Sister couldn't dodge. Julie couldn't dodge either though. And she was being pushed back. She couldn't push the Big Sister back. Julie switched to the revolver. So what if it was dinky? It still did damage!

Julie moved out of the hall and into the open. She set up an electrified cyclone trap and switched to the machine gun while the Big Sister was seizing from the trap.

Okay, hitting Big Sisters with a machine gun was harder than Julie thought. They were about as fast as her. Julie used an Electrobolt to get her to stay still for a moment. The armor piercing bullets went through Big Sister suits too, but they bounced off the helmet and metal braces on her arms and legs.

Julie had wondered what those were for. It seemed kind of silly to focus on protecting the extremities instead of the torso and abdomen, but when your strategy is to move so quickly that you can't be hit it's important to protect your legs while staying as light as possible. The downside was that one lucky shot could end you.

So Julie let the Big Sister get a bit closer, taking a moment to set her on fire, so that her shots would be a bit more accurate. She kept just out of reach of the Sister's blades though.

The Big Sister made an annoyed growl and started telekinetically throwing machinery at Julie. Julie had to switch purely to the defensive to avoid being crushed. That was some strong telekinesis. She had to use a lot of double jumps, and it was going to tire her out if she didn't do something.

Fortunately, pure power can be trumped by accurate, concentrated attacks, and she is the best of any of her sisters at using telekinesis. She just needed something sharp enough…Yeah, that piece of metal should do. She grabbed it. She had to time this just right. After a jump where she had a moment before she had to dodge again, she threw the metal, boosting it as much as she could with telekinesis and cyclone traps.

Julie had been aiming for the Big Sister's stomach since it was easier to hit than the heart. She missed, but it was close enough and caused the Big Sister to freeze. Julie hit her with another Electrobolt and jumped at her with as much momentum as she could before the Sister could recover and start throwing machinery again. She slammed into the Sister, her own harpoon going straight through the Sister's stomach. Julie messily tore out the stomach to make sure she got at the slug.

The Big Sister collapsed, along with the still floating machinery. That was it. She was just gone. Julie sighed before falling to her own knees. She felt exhausted, and her head was killing her. She must have overused her plasmids. She gave herself a shot of EVE, and the headache started to subside.

Now she was out of EVE and first aid kits. She needed to find a vending machine.

Julie stared at the Big Sister for another moment before stuffing her organs back in, moving her off to the side, and checking her for ADAM. Then Julie continued on down the hallway the Big Sister had pushed her out of.


	29. Nobody likes you

"Tell your friends all about the Circus of Values!"

"God, I hate your voice," said Julie as she pocketed the last EVE hypo. She was running really low on money and was debating if she should use what little she had left to buy some sort of food.

Nah, her stomach wasn't trying to eat itself yet.

Now for her next order of business: Finding a Gatherer's Garden. She hadn't had enough ADAM for a plasmid slot before, but she should be fine now.

Julie would have thought a Gatherer's Garden would be in all the break rooms, but this one just had a Circus of Values, an Ammo Bandito, and a normal vending machine that had once held snacks…and pens apparently. Maybe it was only that one break room that had a Gatherer's Garden. It wasn't like everyone would have enough ADAM every day to get a gene tonic or plasmid. Too bad she had no idea where that room was, and she didn't think the arrow would point towards it.

Julie started wandering again, deciding to keep following the arrow for the moment…and eventually found herself in front of a large map that looked to be of most of Vulcan's Forge. Maybe this would help her find Norris and a Gatherer's Garden.

It took Julie close to half an hour to get an idea of where anything significant was, and she had to defend against several splicers that showed up to try and kill her. It looked like there was one break room per floor, which just seemed ridiculous to her. It also looked like there was some sort of control center that had security equipment and could be used to shut down all of Vulcan's Forge. Seemed like a good place to look for Norris.

Julie did her best to memorize the map. She wanted to look for the Gatherer's Garden first since she was going to have to kill Norris, and it sounded like he was experienced and very heavily spliced. She was on the fifth floor…She'd try the sixth floor next.


	30. The New Queen

"I hate maps."

Julie had to chuckle at the audiovox she'd just found.

"There're too many names to remember, I have no idea how far away anything is, and it's just a bunch of lines! What does any of this look like? Can't they have some pictures? I might actually be able to figure out how to use the damned thing then!"

Julie nodded as she tucked the tape away. That was a keeper. She walked down the hallway. She was pretty sure this floor's break room was in one of the hallways coming up. She wasn't sure which, but it would be easy to spot.

And then a Little Sister came running out of a room. Julie was about to go after her but realized it was one of the Little Sisters she'd already cured. Once Julie was sure the Little Sister had gotten to a vent, she hurried into the room she'd run out of.

It was the break room that had had the Gatherer's Garden. Julie walked over and picked up the teddy bear in front of it. If these were still the same…yeah, there was a hidden opening in the back. She pulled out a container of ADAM, some money, and a gene tonic that had a St. Bernard on it. Booze hound? Eleanor knew she was a minor, right? Okay, so Julie had tried drinking before, but for some reason the beers she managed to sneak tasted like hand sanitizer smell. She was hoping that was just because they were cheap. She knew the alcohol in Rapture had gotten pretty bad as things had gone downhill so the local beer and watered down wine would probably taste just as bad.

Julie shook her head. She was getting distracted. She could handle drinking some nasty drinks if she needed to use a plasmid and was out of EVE and EVE hypos. She set up some cyclone traps and injected Booze Hound.

Once Julie stopped feeling drunk, it occurred to Julie that she might need a gene tonic slot for Booze Hound to actually work. She checked the prices of gene tonic slots and decided to wait until she knew for sure before buying one. Then she bought the plasmid slot. She turned it over in her hands for a moment. Hopefully she'd be able to control it. She injected it.

Julie heard footsteps. She spun and lashed out with Incinerate. The splicers flailed around as Julie experimentally tried to activate Insect Swarm.

It briefly felt like something was crawling under the skin of her arms before a stinging sensation started to erupt all over them. It got worse and Julie quickly opened her gloves. Several bees crawled out and flew towards the splicers just as the fire went out. Julie stared as the bees proceeded to sting the splicers to death. That was…oddly terrifying. She glanced at her arms, where more bees were crawling around.

How did she turn it off? Julie tried to will the bees to go away…and they crawled back into her suit. Julie was not ashamed to say she shrieked and flailed her arms, especially when they burrowed into her arms. She shuddered and shook her arms. Was there a way to avoid that? She turned it back on, ignored the sensation of bees crawling out of her arms (It said a lot that this didn't feel as bad as the bees burrowing back into her arms.). She sent the bees off. She ignored the screaming around the door and concentrated on keeping bees from coming out of her arms. No bees came out, but she could feel something crawling beneath her arms. She cut off the plasmid entirely. The crawling feeling stopped. Julie really hoped that she didn't have dead bee grubs stuck in her arms.

Well, too late to do anything about that now.

Julie glanced out the door. It looked like the bees had driven off any splicers hanging around. Julie might not enjoy Insect Swarm, but she had to admit it seemed pretty effective.


	31. The Golden Glow

Insect Swarm was a very painful plasmid to use.

Julie wasn't sure how it worked exactly, but she was pretty sure the bees were eating their way out, which didn't make sense. Bees can't chew. They just suck. She doesn't know how she knows that, but it makes sense when she considers what little she is able to remember from school.

Julie had been wondering if the bees were actually wasps when an ADAM ghost ran across Julie's path. She tensed as the ghost suddenly stopped and pulled out a map. _"Where is it?"_ she muttered in an Irish accent. Julie tried to look over the ADAM ghost's shoulder to get a look at the map, but the ADAM ghost folded it up and started running again. Not having anything else to do, Julie followed the ghost until she stopped in front of…what…the…fuck…

The ADAM ghost was messing with some sort of large lever with a key slot and a couple of blinking lights. The whole thing had a golden glow to it. The ADAM ghost seemed to successfully pick the lock and open the cover to reveal a keypad. The ADAM ghost stared at it for a moment before groaning. _"Okay, control center's out. Maybe there's an empty apartment…"_ She walked off muttering to herself while Julie stared at the lever, which still had a golden glow.

It sounded like this lever had something to do with the control center, where Norris might be hiding. Also, the glow…Julie was pretty sure it meant something, but she wasn't sure it was a good something. Still, she couldn't just keep wandering around forever. Julie glanced down and was surprised to see the arrow pointing directly at the lever. Well, she didn't know what to do to find the control center at this point. Might as well give it a try. Since she didn't know how to pick locks and definitely didn't know what to do with the keypad she just hit it with an Electrobolt.

"Are you stupid?! Don't mess with machinery you can't identify!" Norris shouted at her. He sounded faintly worried so Julie went ahead and tried pulling the lever. It moved, but it was heavy. She tried pushing with Telekinesis too.

*SNAP!*

"Frag it all!"

Julie stared at the broken lever in surprise and almost missed the spider splicers dropping from above. She dodged a slash and slashed back and used Electrobolt on the other while kicking at him.

For some reason she was suddenly struck by how fucked up the spider splicers looked. She knew that splicers look messed up, but these spider splicers look especially horrible even by her standards. She shot the one she was facing in the head before shooting the other as well just to be sure. And then she noticed regular splicers heading for her on the walkways.

Well, at least she knew the lever had been important.


	32. The road to Hell

Julie actually managed to get through the splicer attack with only a bruise on one arm. She guessed her suit might have been damaged, but she couldn't tell. She looted the bodies and turned to the lever. She'd managed to push the lever into the down position before her Telekinesis snapped it in two. The glow was gone, leaving a dull gray in its wake.

If only she knew what it was for…

Julie tried looking for some sort of label, but all she found was the number 3. So…Maybe two other levers? Maybe more? It might be worth it to look for them, but where would she even start?

The arrow darted along the floor in front of her. Julie frowned and tried contacting Eleanor in her head. Nothing. She was on her own. The arrow reappeared and darted along the floor down the same path. Julie shrugged.

Julie still didn't know what the arrow was, but as she moved on, it didn't seem to be leading her into any ambushes. She studied it some more. It wasn't completely solid. She could see through it slightly. It stretched out until it was out of sight. And then the arrow finally came to an end.

Julie stared at the golden, glowing lever the arrow was pointing at. How…? Did she pass it and her brain made a hallucination to remind her? Could it do that? Did she want to know the answer to that question? A splicer interrupted her mental breakdown. She shot it in the head. More splicers showed up and Julie switched between shooting them, electrocuting them, and setting them on fire while occasionally putting a cyclone trap under foot if she had time. During a break in the splicers, Julie hit the lever with an Electrobolt and yanked it with her Telekinesis.

"Stop doing that!" shouted Norris.

Hell, no. If it was causing him problems she was going to keep it up! Julie back flipped over a splicer trying to sneak up behind her before jumping over the railing. She ran off, making sure to keep under the railing to avoid bullets, and reached one of the service tunnels in one piece.

That went pretty well. Now, where…The arrow was back. Okay, it was time to accept this wasn't going away anytime soon. She'd just have to get used to it…So what was it pointing her towards now? Julie considered whether she should keep following it or not before deciding she needed to get away from the splicers anyway.

Maybe it would lead her to another lever.


	33. Is paved with good intentions

While Julie had decided to follow the arrow she was still taking the time to investigate any rooms she didn't recognize from before. She usually found at least a bit of money or a bit of food. Some of the food was spoiled so Julie left it. Occasionally, she'd find a first aid kit or EVE hypo. She found some audiovox.

"God damn it all! Are they trying to work us to death?! 15 hours a day, six days a week, no exceptions! Mark my words, things have got to change, even if I have to force that change myself."

That sounded like Norris. Julie played the next audiovox.

"I have compiled my report and submitted it. Even if Ryan doesn't do anything about our need for new employees, I'm hoping he'll at least do something about the lack of evacuation routes. They way they're set up now just won't work."

Julie had no idea who that was. She hit the play button on the last audiovox.

"So to get into the control center, I need to flip three levers. I don't have the code though. Maybe an Electrobolt can override it if the mechanism is old enough."

That one had been a woman with an Irish accent. Something about her voice was familiar, but before Julie could try to figure out why she heard footsteps heading towards her. She quickly Scouted around the corner, set the offending splicer on fire, returned to her body, physically rounded the corner, and shot her in the head. Julie looted the body and checked to see which way the arrow was pointing before moving on.

She'd already found two of the levers. One more and she could get into the control center. Even if Norris wasn't there, the way he was reacting to her messing with the levers had to mean there was something there he didn't want her to find.

She hoped Norris was there. The sooner she could move on, the sooner she could get back to looking for Little Sisters. Speaking of which, she could see a Rosie pounding on a vent down below. Julie watched him continue for several moments before he gave up with a dejected slump and walked away. Lamb must have cut off the Little Sisters' access to the factories.

Julie watched the Rosie walk away for another moment before moving on.


	34. Well…That was anticlimactic

Julie was reloading her revolver when she found the last lever. She clicked the cylinder back into place and walked over to it.

"Don't you dare," hissed Norris.

Julie ignored him and got ready to electrocute the lever, only to have to fall to the ground as she heard a gunshot.

Of course he sent splicers after her. She set up several cyclone traps and returned fire. She sidestepped a spider splicer and stabbed him through. She briefly used his body as a shield before throwing him at another of the splicers. She lashed out with Electrobolt and propelled herself towards another two splicers that she stabbed in the neck before shooting another. Electrobolt had worn off by then. She grabbed a nearby splicer and used him as a shield against the bullets. She threw some Incinerates around him. When enough splicers were on fire, she dropped her splicer shield and shot them up with her machine gun.

She glanced up to see no spider splicers. She figured there were more splicers that hadn't gotten here yet and took advantage of the break to electrocute the lever. "Don't-" She yanked the lever down. "Fucking son of a bitch!"

Julie ignored him and raced in the new direction the arrow was pointing her. There were splicers, but she boosted herself enough that they missed her. If they stood in the way, she slashed them out of the way. She didn't have time to waste on them. Norris might be trying to escape. She couldn't risk it. She'd just have to hope the arrow would show her the way to the control center.

And after going up several flights of stairs and through more hallways then she could keep track of, the arrow darted into a heavy metal door with several splicers around it. They weren't anything special and were quickly taken care of. She turned to the door and saw a complicated control panel next to it. She electrocuted it several times and used her telekinesis to wrench it open with a screech of metal. She stepped forward and froze.

Julie was aware of the physical deformities that ADAM caused without fail, but she'd never seen someone as bad as the man before her. His skin was sagging horribly several inches, causing skin on his forehead to fall over what looked like welding goggles. The sagging skin also dragged his lips down, making it impossible to close his mouth. The only thing that didn't seem to be sagging was his nose, and that was because it was missing and had been sloppily replaced with a piece of metal. He was leaning heavily on a wheeled canister of gas in a way that suggested he couldn't stand on his own. "Well," rasped out Jacob Norris. "You gonna finish it or not?"

She'd be doing him a favor. She sliced his neck open, ignoring the spray of blood. He dropped. She waited a moment before deciding that was it. She'd expected…more.

Maybe he hadn't planned on surviving.

"Do you know anything about the man you just slaughtered?"

And Lamb was back again. Julie decided to close the door in case she was sending splicers.

"Jacob Norris was a welder who helped build Rapture. Even after Rapture was completed, he continued to practice his trade because that was what he loved."

Julie started going through Norris' pockets. He had some money, along with an odd device that Julie just knew was a genetic key.

"But his overseers demanded more and more work from him…until he came to resent the skills he once found pride in."

A part of the console had a golden glow to it now. Julie studied it for a moment and slipped the genetic key into a slot.

"He protested the treatment of himself and his fellows only once. He was fired for it."

The key didn't stick so Julie turned it. The consoles came to life, but she had no idea what any of it meant. For all she knew she could open the airlocks and flood the entire factory.

"He was forced to become an ADAM test subject just to survive."

At least there were labels. Why did they have to be so complicated though?

"He was barely able to function when he came to me begging for help."

No…No…No…No…L-O-C-K. Luck? Nah, that didn't make sense. Lock? She didn't want to lock anything. Might be close.

"Norris gave up his livelihood, his health, his sanity, everything he ever had, all for nothing ultimately."

U-N-L-O-C-K. That was lock with 'un' in front of it. That meant…unlock. That could be it. She hit the button. The door behind her made an unlocking sound. Wrong door.

"Do you have any idea what it takes to have that level of determination? To give your life to a cause?"

Julie wouldn't be here if she didn't. L-O-C-K-D-O-W-N. Lock was in that word too. Do…Done? No, wait. No 'E'. Don? Dovn? Down? Lockdown? She was sure she'd heard that word before, but she couldn't remember what it meant. She wanted to say that it meant you couldn't go anywhere. She guessed that sort of counted here. The light under it was on. She pressed a button below it, and the light turned off. She had no idea if that worked.

"Or have you ever cared about anyone besides yourself?"

Julie messed with some more buttons that she thought might unlock the doors before deciding that she had no idea what else she could do.

She glanced at the genetic key, decided she shouldn't leave it behind, and took it out. She waited a moment. The arrow darted out from beneath her feet and out the closed door.

Time to see if this worked.


	35. Australians are to be feared

Surprisingly, the arrow only took a few minutes to lead Julie to a door that had a couple of words that both started with 'A' on top of it. The only place in Rapture that could be was Artemis Apartments. That was housing for middle class families. Wouldn't be surprising if there were still splicers living there. Well, she had plenty of anti-personnel rounds left.

Julie stepped up to the door. It opened smoothly. Julie carefully moved through the tunnel. The door on the other end opened. Julie could see apartments, so she was probably right where she was going. She stepped across the threshold.

The door slammed shut, and the intercom crackled to life. Julie wondered if it would be Lamb or another splicer put in charge of this area. Well, it was a woman, but she had an Australian accent. "So, you're here to fight us? Think we'll roll over and die, do ya? Well, think again! You. End. Here."

An Australian. Who was spliced up. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Julie knew what Australians were (usually) like. Could she take on someone like Saxton Hale who could also throw fire or take even more damage or hit twice as hard as they normally could? She honestly had no idea.

Well, whoever it was had been down here for a while. Maybe it would cause some of the effects of Australium to lessen. She didn't know how that worked. She knew some people were immune thanks to Sniper…

Anyway, she better start planning for the worst case scenario. What would work to kill an enhanced Australian? Julie walked forward, not bothering to use Scout. She was already in the open so it seemed pointless. She supposed she could bounce this lady around with telekinesis and cyclone traps…if she upgraded. She could set her on fire if she wasn't resistant. Try stunning her if she wasn't resistant. Stunning would last longer with a higher level of Electrobolt.

It always came around to getting better plasmids and tonics. Julie hated it.

The only other thing Julie could think of to do was to get a health or EVE upgrade. On second thought, RED would notice if she was suddenly taking more hits, and the health upgrades sometimes had…weird side effects. She'd stick to EVE upgrades. Moving quickly and dodging was more her style than tanking it out anyway. She'd need to find a Gatherer's Garden before she could put any of this into action though.

As Julie was thinking this, she noticed a Gene Bank next to a nearby alley. She looked around to make sure there weren't any obvious splicers. She glanced down the alley to be sure no one was waiting to ambush her and turned her attention to the Gene Bank.


	36. Stronger

According to the Gene Bank, Julie had one free gene tonic slot left. Julie was thinking about it as she walked along, looking for anything interesting, checking to see which way the arrow was pointing, and occasionally killing splicers. Eventually she decided not to bother buying any tonics from that point on. She'd still use any gene tonics she found if they were useful, and she'd only buy tonic slots if she ran out of room. She briefly wondered why the Cure and Cure to the Cure and all the other changes that would have been made as she was turned into a Little Sister didn't seem to take up any slots. Maybe Ma put them somewhere else.

 _Julie, how are you doing?_

Julie was surprised for a moment. 'Eleanor! Where were you?!'

 _There were some things I needed to take care of, mostly procuring more ADAM for future use. It will be at least a couple of hours before it's ready, possibly longer if I experience any interference._

Julie shrugged. 'I'll be fine. I finally managed to get out of Vulcan so there ought to be at least a couple of Little Sisters I can find.'

 _So that's what Mother was talking about…Where are you now?_

'Artemis Apartments. I got threatened by an Australian woman.'

 _Naledi Atkins. She was part of the Sinclair program with Norris. She's…I believe the most polite term is 'adrenaline junkie'._

'Sounds like a typical Australian.'

 _That seems a bit stereotypical of you._

Eleanor sounded a bit disappointed so Julie assumed that was a bad thing. 'Uh…What does stereotypical mean?'

 _It means that you apply a set of behaviors to a group of people, even if it doesn't necessarily apply to certain individuals._

'I've met Australians. They're all testosterone fueled assholes. 'Cept for Sniper 'cause he's immune to Australium.'

 _…_ _Immune to what?_

Julie wasn't surprised that Eleanor didn't know about Australium. 'It's some metal mostly found in Australia that makes people smarter and stronger. Makes 'em act crazy though. They mostly keep it a secret so no one tries to mine the Australium and exhaust the supply. Ma only knows 'cause Ryan managed to get his hands on a few ounces before he came to Rapture. I only know 'cause Ma told us why we shouldn't dig up that one spot in the backyard.'

 _Are you making that up?_

'Nope. It's a real thing. We have a couple of ounces hidden in our backyard in case of an emergency.'

 _How come I've never heard of it?_

'Like I said, Australians keep Australium a secret. I'm surprised Ryan was able to find out about it at all. Besides Atkins and any other Australians, I'm not sure if anyone still in Rapture knows about it.'

 _Probably for the best. Can you imagine if something like that was combined with the effects of ADAM?_

Julie winced. 'Yeah, I am not looking forward to fighting Atkins.'

 _...What's wrong?_

'Just…it sounds like she's a typical Australian, and one of my bosses is too-'

 _It's not that. For a moment I thought I felt…self-loathing._

Julie paused. 'You can feel what I feel?'

 _Very faintly._

Julie subconsciously went to facepalm and ended up smearing her window. She frowned and started looking for something to wipe it off. 'It's nothing. I just had a talk with Ma.'

 _What about?_

'Just stuff. It's nothing new.' Julie found some old newspaper and started wiping at the glass with it. 'I'll deal with it later.'

 _…_ _All right. If that's how you feel, but I'll be here if you change your mind._

Julie felt annoyed at Eleanor and hoped she felt it. Eleanor may be one of the few people who'd understand what she was going through, but that didn't mean she wanted to talk about it. Eleanor should be able to understand that.

Julie tossed aside the newspaper and got back to work.


	37. All Is One

Julie was ignoring the arrow for now to look for anything that might be useful against Atkins. It could be anything from an audiovox Atkins had made to a Little Sister she could Cure and get some ADAM from.

It wasn't always easy to get into an apartment. Most were unlocked, but some were locked and needed a code to open. When she did get into an apartment, it wasn't unusual to run into a splicer. She guessed they might still be living here. Did that mean she was technically breaking and entering? Actually, she's not sure that would be illegal down here.

"Whoa…"

Julie looked around the apartment she'd just entered. The furniture had been thrown out, and someone had scribbled onto the walls, floor, and ceiling. That was a new one. Julie tried reading, but it was in cursive. Then she realized it was in another language and just gave up.

Julie tried the kitchen, which had been left mostly intact. The stove had been taken apart, but that happened sometimes. She opened the fridge.

Inside the fridge on a plate was a decapitated head. It wasn't alive like the BLU Spy's head. Next to it was shotgun ammo. Under it was an audiovox. Julie grabbed the ammo and audiovox and hit the play button.

"Atlas came by and gave us his spiel. The spiel was good, and I want to believe it, but…I'm not sure how to put this. His accent is…wrong. He sounds Irish but not Irish, like he's pretending to be Irish." The speaker on the audiovox would know since she was Irish. Unless she was faking being Irish too. Julie seemed to be running into a lot of audiovox from Irish women.

Wait a minute…

Julie pulled out several audiovox tapes and started playing them. It took a while to find the ones she was looking for. She played all of them in a row and stared at the audiovox. She wasn't running into a lot of Irish women. She was running into a lot of audiovox from one Irish woman.

That was bizarre. What were the chances that she'd find so many tapes from the same woman without actively looking for them? It was kind of creepy. Should she be worried?

 _"_ _God, why did this have to happen?"_

Julie jumped and spun around, looking for the source of the question. It sounded like the same Irish woman that had been on the Audiovox.

Maybe it was a memory.

Julie shot another splicer as she thought about it. That might explain it. If she'd injected ADAM recycled from this woman, she'd get some of her memories. Even if she hadn't experienced any of those memories, maybe she was subconsciously remembering where the audiovox were. It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened. She and her sisters regularly found they had skills that they shouldn't have, like Julie's ability to make sushi.

She didn't even _like_ sushi.

Content with the explanation, Julie closed the fridge door and left the apartment.


	38. One Is All

Julie sighed as she ripped her harpoon out of a female splicer. She still hadn't found anything useful. That lady Julie had just stabbed definitely wasn't Atkins and didn't look particularly important so Julie was surprised to find an audiovox on her. Most splicers didn't bother to carry them around because they took up so much room. Maybe something important was on it.

"I know…I know I'm not a good person. I know that, but I wanna change. I really do. And Lamb says she can help me. She's so nice. I want to be like her…"

Or not. Julie made a face. The thought of anyone being like Lamb made her want to puke. She started to pull out the tape before changing her mind and putting the audiovox back in place and heading inside another apartment.

It seemed pretty normal. A spare bullet was lying around in the living room. There was some water in the fridge that she drank since she was getting thirsty. She headed towards the bedroom.

 **"** **Give me back my daughter!"**

Julie inhale sharply as she tried to get her head to stop pounding. "What…" Had that been a memory? It felt like someone had been screaming in her head. "Why did that…"

Groaning.

Oh.

"…Sorry. I can't give her back."


	39. Stepford

Julie was feeling a little more confident now that she had managed to rescue a few Little Sisters. She figured she could take out this Big Daddy with a minimum of injuries, but she still needed to consider the surrounding environment. There were lots of Splicers around. They might attack. It would be better if they fought in an isolated location…Is what she'd be thinking if she recognized this type of Big Daddy. It wasn't a Bouncer. It wasn't a Rosie. It must be a new type they'd come up with since she'd last been here. It looked like it had a cannon on its shoulder, which suggested heavy ordinance…maybe?

She'd have avoided him if a Little Sister wasn't skipping around his feet.

If he had bombs she definitely couldn't fight him in one of the apartments. They could bring the whole building down. Not that she cared about the apartments, but she didn't want to have a building fall on her head even with a helmet and fast healing.

So outside it was then. This was gonna suck. Julie placed some cyclone traps and tossed out an Incinerate. The Big Daddy roared. She threw an Electrobolt at the Big Daddy at the same time he fired off some sort of metal projectile onto the ground. Did he do that on purpose? The projectile popped up and beeped in a way that had Julie instinctively ducking inside an open apartment. Good thing too. It started firing off bullets.

The Big Daddy could fire off instant turrets. That was _not_ fair! Oh! Idea! She tossed a Security polyp at the Big Daddy just as it fired…Julie telekinetically caught a grenade. "Turrets and grenades?!" She threw the grenade back at the Big Daddy, who had been distracted by the turret. Splicers were starting to come out. Julie decided it would be a good idea to leave the turret alone for the moment while throwing around more Security polyps…and staying out of the line of fire. She'd learned that lesson the hard way.

Julie caught another grenade and threw it back. This Big Daddy was slower than Bouncers and Rosies. She'd be able to avoid its melee attacks if nothing else. She started setting splicers on fire and threw another security polyp at the Big Daddy. She dodged gunfire before electrocuting and shooting the splicer. Maybe she should try yanking guns away from splicers so she wouldn't have to worry about that at least. She tried this with another splicer's gun. It went flying into her hand. She quickly turned it around and emptied the clip shooting the splicers.

She was going to remember that trick.

Julie pulled away more guns while throwing security polyps (She didn't want to use up her EVE.). Without guns, the splicers had to stick to attacking her with whatever they could get their hands on, and that was easy for her to dodge. The real problem was avoiding the grenades and sentry fire, but she'd gotten used to those sorts of maneuvers.

The Big Daddy was getting close to dropping. The outer layer of his suit had bubbled and darkened, yellow fluid was leaking from seams and holes, and his left leg was barely working. Julie noticed less splicers were showing up. Only two.

She caught and returned another grenade…which ended up stuck in one of the holes in the suit. It blew up and took a good section of the Big Daddy's front with it.

Julie immediately scooped up the Little Sister while tossing security polyps at the two remaining splicers and jumped halfway up the apartment complex as the small turret fired at them. At which point she suddenly realized someone had been talking over the intercom the whole time.

"-Do you know what they do to child molesters in prison?"

…What the heck had the Atkins lady been talking about? "Don't listen to her. She's an idiot," said Julie.

The Little Sister smiled at her. "Okay!"

Julie started looking for a vent. "Let's find you a hidey hole."

The Little Sister kept smiling. "Okay!"

Julie shot a splicer that tried to sneak up on them. At least Atkins seemed to have shut up. "There it is." Julie walked over. She placed a hand on the Little Sister and Cured her. "Better?"

"…Can I stop smiling now?"

Julie nodded. "Yeah." She boosted the Little Sister into the vent. "Be careful!"


	40. Investigating

Okay, Julie might have enough ADAM for the Telekinesis upgrade. The question was what she should buy if she didn't have enough…If she should buy anything. She might already be well prepared to fight Atkins. She had no idea.

Julie huffed. She needed more information on Atkins. She wasn't sure how to go about finding that info though. That was something Spy usually did, and he was secretive about his methods.

Julie couldn't really ask people since all of Rapture wanted to kill her except for her Ma and Eleanor. Julie didn't think her Ma would know anything about Atkins, but it seemed to be worth a try. She grabbed the radio. "Ma?"

"Hm?"

"Have you ever heard of Naledi Atkins?"

"No, why?"

"She's in charge of this section. I'm trying to figure out what she can do since I'll have to fight her at some point," explained Julie.

"Where are you?"

"Artemis Apartments."

"If she lived there, maybe there's some sort of information at the landlord's office," suggested her Ma.

"Good idea!" Julie frowned. "Wait. I have no idea where that is."

"I think it was somewhere near the middle of the complex."

Julie nodded. "Great. I'll try that. Thanks. Gotta go." She hung up and absentmindedly shot a splicer trying to sneak up on her. So now she had somewhere to start. She should probably come up with a plan B in case there was nothing at the landlord's office.

She guessed she could keep looking for audiovox. They weren't always useless.

Julie thought and thought about other ways to get information. She guessed she could try eavesdropping, but she kind of stuck out unless she used Scout. She wasn't really comfortable with leaving her body unattended that often. Besides, it would tire her out too quickly.

Julie's eyes were drawn to the ADAM bottle strapped to her arm…Maybe there was a memory with information she could use? How the Hell was she supposed to do use that though? She had no control over when a memory popped up…

…Actually, being in the same place a memory happened did seem to make memories more likely to pop up. She still couldn't control the memories, but maybe she would see a memory if she wandered around for a little while.

Julie glanced at the arrow. Looked like she'd be ignoring it for a while.


	41. That's the sort of thing

...I'd expect from Pyro…

* * *

How hard was it to find the landlord's office? Or at least their apartment? Really, either would do at this point. Julie figured it was on the top or bottom floor of whatever level it was on. Maybe a fancier apartment. It was just that there were a lot of apartments…Had there ever been this many people living in Rapture?

Julie glanced in an open door. For some reason none of the apartments had windows. She was mostly glancing in through the doors to see if there was anything interesting before going inside. It wasn't very efficient, but she didn't want to keep having to fight splicers simply because she couldn't afford to. She had no idea how many first aid kits and EVE hypos she'd be able to find or buy.

It felt weird to be avoiding fights after spending so much time looking for them. She wasn't even sure why she'd gone through the trouble of picking fights up until getting hired by RED. She'd just…felt so…angry.

"̀́͡F̵̡̡́͢i̵̶̡͘͜l̛̀͟͠͝ţ̧̨͢ḩ̶̵y̨ ̸̧͏h̛̕͢ą͢͢͝͝ļ̸̧̡f̨̧-̢͝b̷̛̀͜r̡̀͡è̴҉͘ȩ̶̛d̷͠.͏̧"̵̡̧͘

̧͠"̛S̨҉͜o̢̕͠n̴̵ ̕͟o̵̵͞f͟ ̸̡̧̛a҉̷̀͘͡ ̀͞b̀̕͏i̧̕͜t҉͞c̶̡̀͘҉h̀̕̕!̢͏̀"̨̨̕҉

"̵̧́͟͢C̸҉́a̸̡͠͡n̢͘͜͠͝'͏̕͟͢t͠҉̀͡ ̀͢͜b̴̡̨͘͘è̵̕l̶͏i͠͞e͏̵͘͜v͟͏̨͡ę̴̢̕ ̢͢h̴e̛͘҉ ̸̧̢͜͠d̸̨̀͜i̷͜͝҉͠d̢͜͞͏̢ǹ̛́́͝'̶̸͡҉̧t̴̨ ̡͞͡d͞͡͞r͏͏̷̕͜o҉̶҉̷҉ẃ̵̢̛n͏̶̧͘͟ ̴͜͞͡ỳ̨́͢ó̷̢ų͜͡͞.̧̨"̶́͡͡͏

Julie growled. Now she felt angry again, and she didn't even know why! She growled and threw some fire into a nearby apartment. She heard an explosion from inside. She must have hit a grenade being kept in there.

And then fire came shooting out of the doorway. Julie instinctively backpedaled as the flames started to spread. Within a minute the fire had somehow spread to the rest of the apartment block as splicers ran screaming from the flaming deathtrap.

Julie could only stare with her mouth hanging open. That had _not_ been intentional.

"It's not enough that you're invading our homes, you have to burn them too?!" demanded Atkins. "Then we'll return the favor!"

Julie snapped her mouth shut as several splicers, some with fresh burns advanced on her. For once, she could understand why they wanted to kill her. She'd just burnt down their homes. She'd react the same way.

Julie tossed out some Electrobolts before laying down some cyclone traps and yanking at the guns with Telekinesis. She got some of the guns and a pipe, but most of the splicers managed to keep a hold of their weapons. Shoot. She emptied a couple of the guns before a splicer attacked her from behind. Julie quickly whirled and decapitated the splicer. Then she quickly turned around and tossed out some fire. Most of the splicers jerked back with a scream. One straight up ran away.

Julie experimentally produced some more fire. The splicers jerked away again. Okay, they were a bit scared of fire now. She could work with that. She let out a burst of fire while pulling out her revolver and shooting a distracted splicer in the head. That snapped the rest of the splicers out of it, and they charged.

Several triggered cyclone traps and got tossed up into the air. This thinned the mob enough for Julie to shoot a couple before they remembered they had guns and started firing. Julie started moving evasively while making sure to head tap the splicers that had come down from the Cyclone Traps. She just needed to take care of a few more splicers now. She telekinetically jerked one forward onto her harpoon to use as a human shield while shooting around him. The splicers moved evasively too, but Julie did eventually manage to shoot them after what felt like forever but was probably only a few moments.

Julie went through a few pockets before hurriedly walking away while injecting an EVE hypo. No way she hadn't pissed off the rest of the sector with that boneheaded move. She needed to get out of here before the whole of Artemis Apartments came down on her.

She really hoped the land lord's office hadn't been back there.


	42. They really should have known better

Julie was sort of following the arrow. She still had no idea where the arrow would take her. She was hoping it would take her to the land lord's office since that was where she wanted to go, but she wasn't sure it worked that way. It might be leading her to Atkins instead, and Julie didn't really want to have to fight her until she was as ready as she could be. So she was following the arrow for a bit and then veering off to look around a bit and then following it a bit more.

It probably wasn't very efficient, but it was the best Julie could come up with.

Julie glanced through an open door. Nothing interesting in that door. She carefully opened and peeked through another door. A splicer was muttering in the kitchen. Julie closed the door and backed away. The splicer didn't seem to notice. That was happening more often than Julie would have guessed. Not that she was complaining, but it was odd.

Julie moved on and saw an audiovox on the couch inside an apartment. She considered for a moment. It could be useful, but if it was left in the open, it probably wasn't anything important. It might even be a trap. Julie figured it was worth the risk. She pulled out the revolver and walked inside, sweeping the room as she did so. No one seemed to be around.

Julie heard a noise behind her and turned back towards the door just in time to shoot a splicer in the head. She kept shooting the appearing splicers in the head as they were forced to come in one at a time. She ran out of ammo as the last one came in with a machine gun. Julie dashed forward, knocked his arms up so that he fired at the ceiling, and impaled him doubly so in the torso before ripping her arms to the sides and sending his torso flying.

Julie stepped back and started going through the splicers' pockets. Then she closed the door and went over to the audiovox. It played static over what sounded like a woman talking. Julie had no idea what she was saying. She threw it back onto the couch. This had been a trap. She glanced towards a nearby side table with a drawer. Might as well see if she could find something useful since she was already in here.

Julie was going through the fridge when she heard a creaking sound. She looked around in confusion. That sounded like the building, not a person. Where was it coming from? Julie looked up at the ceiling and realized the last splicer's machine gun had shot several holes through the ceiling.

And then the ceiling completely collapsed.

Julie made a face and waved her hand to try and clear the dust. "Ew…How does getting shot make a ceiling fall apart?" she asked rhetorically. She didn't think the building structure was _that_ bad, although given how long it had been since anyone had taken care of it she guessed it could have rotted. She studied the debris…

…And there was another body…That was partially mummified. Julie made a face. Had that been in the ceiling? She looked up and noted she could see into the above apartment that was thankfully empty. He'd probably been in there and no one bothered to move him. That happened all the time and made a lot more sense.

Something caught Julie's eye and she carefully moved the mummy to see a bulletproof lockbox. The key was in the lock. Julie snorted. Who went to the effort to put something in a lockbox and then just left the key in it? It was probably empty, but Julie checked anyway.

There was a gene tonic inside.

…How had that stayed unfound this whole time? Julie checked the bottle over. No cracks, and the seal was intact. It even still had the sealed syringe. The label identified it as Extra Nutrition 2. Julie knew for a fact that just made your metabolism more efficient so you didn't have to eat as much.

Actually, that sounded like a good idea in this case. A lot of the food she'd been eating was a few years past the expiration date. Julie quickly injected the gene tonic and left the apartment.


	43. Nobody wants to die

"Atlas and his men somehow escaped from Fontaine's Department store. This is bad. There's talk about Ryan drafting citizens to get spliced up and kill Atlas's men. Maybe if I stay in my apartment for long enough, they'll think I'm dead and leave me alone. But I'll need food…Lots of food."

Julie looked around the latest apartment she'd broken into. There were a lot of empty cans all over the place, so he had managed to procure enough food to attempt his plan. She picked up a Beef-E can.

 _"_ _Leave me alone!"_

 _"_ _You think you're better than us?! You think you got the right to stay nice an' comfy in your home while we're dying?!"_

 _"_ _I don't want to die!"_

 _"_ _Well, that's too bad!"_

Looks like the plan failed. Julie kicked another empty can before hitting the record button. "This guy tried to wait out the civil war. Didn't work, but ya gotta give him props. He had a bunch of food. 'Course I don't think it was possible to get out of the fight. Nowhere to run to."

Julie took a moment to see if there was anything to eat. There were a few cans unopened. Julie hid a few of them before eating the can of peaches. She'd come back later if she got hungry.


	44. Vie En Rose

Julie was hallucinating singing.

She hadn't immediately noticed since intercoms still sometimes played music, but then one of the community service announcements came on over the singing, and Julie really paid attention.

It…actually wasn't the first time that sort of thing had happened. A song got stuck in someone's head, their ADAM got recycled, and then the song got stuck in her head despite never hearing the song before.

Except…This sounded different. The singer sounded sad, and the lyrics weren't English, which was odd since languages besides English tended to be discouraged in Rapture. She had no idea what the lyrics were. She paid attention for a moment to try and see if she recognized any words.

 _'_ _C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui, dans la vie…'_

Julie was pretty sure the words were French. If it wasn't a song that originated in Rapture Spy might be familiar with it. Of course if she saw him again she would have forgotten the lyrics by then.

If…

Julie suddenly wondered what RED would do if she didn't come back. Would they just get a new Scout and continue on? Would they try to hurt her family? Would they miss her?

She missed them.

Julie abruptly came to a stop at the realization. She…she hadn't thought she'd miss them. It made her chest ache.

What could she do? All she could think of was to return to Teufort.

So she kept walking.


	45. Microwave ovens

...became commercially available in 1947.

* * *

Julie had decided to try another floor and had managed to find a stairwell. She had to electrocute a security camera and then looked up and looked down. She was a bit closer to the top so she went down a flight before checking again. She didn't think she was quite in the middle yet so she went down another flight of stairs. She Scouted the other side of the stairwell door and groaned when she saw an ambush waiting for her. She used Incinerate.

While the splicers were panicking, she kicked down the door and fired at them with the machine gun. That took care of that. Now to look for the landlord's office.

 _"_ _Did they cut off the water to your apartment too?"_

 _"_ _Yeah, where do they get off? They think we're gonna drink the sea water?"_

 _"_ _That'll kill ya real quick."_

Julie shrugged and decided to walk along the same path her hallucinations had been going. It would only work for a few feet, but it was something.

And there was a different looking door. It also had a longer interval between that door and the next one. Julie checked the door. Unlocked. She pushed in and quickly swept the room with her revolver before determining it was empty. This room anyway. She closed the door and locked it.

The room did appear to be an office, but it was completely trashed, probably ransacked. Julie checked the filing cabinets. The paper was rotting. Julie made an annoyed sound and moved to the desk. The desk was empty except for a bottle of some kind of pills. The label on that was rotten too.

Julie stood and went into the next room, only to step on something hard. She looked down and saw keys. She guessed that meant she was in the landlord's office, but she hadn't heard anything that suggested that someone else was in here. She went into the next room. It was a living area, also trashed and ransacked. No furniture, but there were some appliances in the kitchen. She went ahead and checked them.

Stove empty. Fridge empty. Cabinets empty. Microwave.

…Huh. There was a microwave. She didn't think they were that old. Julie opened it up.

A gene tonic. Wow, how had that managed to stay here for so long? She turned it over. She didn't recognize the picture. She took a moment to read the name. Metabolic EVE? She frowned. She'd never heard of it. She tried to read the description.

Re…gen…er…ates EVE.

Julie stared and read it again to make sure she hadn't misread it. She was going through a lot of EVE. She had to drink a lot of caffeine and inject a lot of EVE. It would help if she could just regenerate it. She didn't actually have a tonic slot available, but she could make one available or get another one if she needed to. Julie injected the gene tonic.

She spent another moment looking around and found an audiovox stuffed under the sink. She turned it on.

"I'd suggest looking in the bathysphere port."

Julie jumped and spun around…and there was nothing.

She could have sworn someone whispered that in her ear at the same time she played the audiovox. She played it again. "I'd suggest looking in the bathysphere port," whispered the voice from the audiovox. Julie could barely hear it, but it was definitely the same line, same voice: Female…Irish…

It…It must be that woman from before. That was it. She'd just happened to get the woman's memory of making this audiovox right as she found it.

That's all it was.


	46. It's gotten smaller since then

Julie had found another Gatherer's Garden. She was kind of surprised to see more than one in such a small area, but she guessed it was a pretty crowded area. She checked how much ADAM she had on her. To her shock, she had 250 units of ADAM, exactly enough to buy Telekinesis 3…but she also wanted a gene tonic slot to activate Metabolic EVE.

Julie thought for a moment. Normally, she would just go with the Telekinesis upgrade, but she was trying to think in the long term. Given, she would only need to find another Little Sister to get either one, but she would still have to fight splicers and a Big Daddy and maybe even a Big Sister. So would being able to hit harder or last longer be better? It was a tough choice to make.

Eventually, she decided based on her resources. Using plasmids was exhausting. She had to keep buying and injecting EVE hypos. She'd like to avoid having to inject the crap…and it would maybe save her some money in the long run that she could use on other things. Julie bought the gene tonic slot.

Injecting the gene tonic slot didn't really make her feel any different. Julie wasn't actually sure if Metabolic Eve was activated. Maybe it would be a good idea to check at a Gene Bank. Julie had the feeling that it was possible for gene tonics to stay…inaccessible even after getting another slot.

Julie would find a Gene Bank before she got herself into any more trouble.


	47. Can we be forgiven?

Julie had managed to find a Gene Bank after a few minutes and was relieved to see that EVE Metabolism was active. Now she shouldn't have to inject herself with EVE anymore…or at least worry about overusing plasmids in the middle of a fight, which was good because she'd heard a Big Daddy groaning while she was using the Gene Bank.

After sniffing and looking around for a couple of minutes, Julie found another one of the new Big Daddies. There was no Little Sister yet, but Julie figured she could work on weakening him before they ran into each other so she tried throwing a security polyp at him.

Julie quickly realized the Security Command wasn't going to work. There weren't a lot of security machines outside the apartments. Inside the apartments was another story, but the Big Daddy didn't seem interested in going inside any of them. Julie figured she might as well try bees, but they didn't have much of an effect. She wasn't surprised. The suits were thick. No way a dinky little bee sting would get through them. The Big Daddy was wiping at his porthole though so maybe they could cover that and blind him for a couple of seconds. She also tried to direct the bees into his equipment in the hopes their bodies would gunk something up. It didn't work, but the bees would occasionally veer away from the Big Daddy and attack a random splicer instead. It wasn't enough to kill most splicers (One had collapsed while grasping at his neck. Julie was pretty sure he'd been allergic.), but it distracted them long enough for her to finish them off.

Julie kept this up for several minutes before the Big Daddy stopped at a vent and pounded on it. After a moment a Little Sister crawled out. "Is it time again already?" Julie took a deep breath and used Incinerate. It burned up the bees. Oops. She really should've thought of that.

"She's at it again! Are you going to let her get away with this?!"

The Big Daddy roared and fired a turret. Julie tossed another security polyp at him so that the turret would aim for him instead. The Big Daddy fired a grenade. Julie summoned a telekinetic wall with a cyclone trap that sent it flying straight back where it came from. She grinned. She could make this work!

A couple of splicers showed up, but they were quickly coated in Security Command and taken out by the turret. Julie sent a couple more grenades back towards the Big Daddy before he wised up and started trying to rush her and gut her with his hook. She was faster. She just needed to be sure that she stayed out of the path of the turret's bullets and she could fire as much as she wanted.

She'd barely taken any damage by the time the Big Daddy was down and out. Julie electrocuted the turret and picked up the Little Sister, who was looking between her and the Big Daddy like she wasn't sure who to side with. Julie quickly carried her over to the same vent she'd crawled out of and Cured her. "There you go."

And then a shriek ripped the air apart.

Julie cursed. She just couldn't get a break, could she?

She reloaded her guns. She set up some traps. The Big Sister screamed again. She was close. Scout injected an EVE hypo just to be safe. After some debate, she produced some bees on the off chance they would be able to block the Big Sister's view.

The bees were useless.

The Big Sister came from seemingly nowhere and promptly started trying to stab Julie so rapidly that Scout had to completely dedicate her attention to blocking the strikes. The Big Sister just would not let up! And she was strong! The force from the strikes went to Julie's bones, made them shake. Julie was rapidly losing feeling in her arms. She instinctively kicked out at the Big Sister's stomach, knocking her back a couple of feet. She put up cyclone traps between the two of them.

The Big Sister yanked Julie forward with telekinesis. Julie was so surprised that she was not prepared for when she was sent up by her own cyclone trap. Julie wasn't able to completely block the next attack and the harpoon went straight up her right arm.

Oh, that was bad. That was a lot of blood.

Julie threw some of the blood at the Big Sister's porthole, managed to shoot off some phosphorous buck and propelled the two of them apart with the dual cyclone trick. Julie quickly took out a first aid hypo and stuck it in her arm as the Big Sister wiped the blood off her porthole and then had the buckshot explode all over her.

It didn't feel like the first aid hypo had completely healed her arm, but it would have to do. She tossed an Electrobolt at the Big Sister as she tried to rush Julie again. Julie used some more Electrobolts as she tried to figure out how to deal with this Big Sister. She hit hard and fast.

Actually, this Big Sister fought a lot like her. Okay, what were her weaknesses? High power weapons, turrets, Heavies…

Oh.

Julie got some distance, pulled out the machine gun, and started firing. The Big Sister rushed her, which was a bad idea as any decent Scout would tell you. Maybe the suit protected the Big Sister from most bullets, but Scout had made sure to load the machine gun with armor piercing rounds. Some got through.

The clip ran out of bullets. The Big Sister ran up to Julie, blood leaking from her suit. Julie knew enough about blood loss to know that if she could hold out long enough the Big Sister would simply bleed out. Unless she had some way to heal herself, but Julie had destroyed all the nearby health stations, and she'd never seen anyone else stop in the middle of a fight to use a first aid hypo.

She kept blocking attacks as the Big Sister weakened. The attacks didn't make her arms shake anymore. Then Julie could push away the attacks. Then the Big Sister was shaking and could barely stand. Then she collapsed.

Julie caught her before she could hit the ground and carefully lowered her to the ground, her head in her lap. "It's okay. It's okay." She slipped off a glove before slipping off the Big Sister's helmet. Unfocused yellow eyes stared up at her. Julie ran her ungloved hand through curly, black hair. "You can rest now." And then. "I'm sorry." She really was. "I wish this hadn't had to happen."

And then the Big Sister stopped breathing.

Julie sat there with her sister for another few minutes, just trying to clean her up a bit and closing her eyes so that it looked more like she was sleeping than dead.

Julie wished she could fool herself into believing her sister was just sleeping, but it was too late for that.


	48. The sins crawling on your back

Julie had needed a moment to recover. She found an apartment that she knew was empty, closed the door and collapsed against the wall. She pulled off her helmet and wiped at her eyes. She felt like crying but gulped down her sobs instead.

 _Julie? What happened? You feel nearly inconsolable._

'I've killed three Big Sisters since I got here.'

 _…_ _I know. I heard._

'I hate it.'

 _You don't have a choice. If you don't kill them, they'll kill you._

"But they're my sisters!"

 _They were my sisters too!_

Julie grabbed her head and took several deep breaths. 'You weren't the one who had to kill them.'

Eleanor sighed. _Obviously, now is not the time to try and get past this._

"This isn't something you can get over!"

 _So you'll just carry the guilt around with you for the rest of your life?_

"Yes!"

 _That's not healthy!_

"I don't care!"

There was silence before Eleanor let out a huff and disappeared from Julie's mind. Julie cursed and threw her helmet across the room.

Of course she felt guilty! They were family! It didn't matter if she was a killer. You don't hurt family. Ever.

Only monsters hurt their family.


	49. Moving on

It had taken a while due to a couple of splicer attacks, but Julie had finally pulled herself together. She was still upset, but at least she was thinking straight again.

She stood and retrieved her helmet from where she'd thrown it. It looked okay to her. She put it back on. If she really needed to go outside Rapture, she'd grab a different helmet.

What now? She had to go somewhere. She definitely couldn't stay here. She Scouted outside, set the splicers that had gathered outside on fire, and then went outside herself to finish them off. She started walking. The landlord's office was a bust. She couldn't think of anything else to look for. She guessed she'd just follow the arrow again.

 _"_ _Atkins loves bathyspheres."_

It was the Irish lady. Julie recognized her voice. She turned towards the voice and saw an ADAM hallucination standing near an apartment door. Julie had wondered what this woman looked like. Turned out she was a small woman with curly hair…who was looking right at her.

Julie blinked and tilted her head. The lady crossed her arms with a raised eyebrow. _"Well? What are you going to do now?"_ And then the hallucination disappeared.

…Julie was now sufficiently disturbed. She hurriedly walked away.

After a few minutes of walking and trying not to think about how that hallucination had seemed to know she was there, Julie decided that it was worth a try and pulled out her radio. "Ma, where's the bathysphere station located?"

"As far as I know it is on the same level as the landlord's office."

Julie nodded. "Okay, if it's not too far away I'll check it out."

Her stomach growled.

"After I get some food."


	50. Hunger

It required some apartment scavenging, but Julie managed to find some food that she ate as quickly and carefully as she could. She still felt a bit hungry. Weird. She'd gotten hungry pretty quickly.

Must have been all the damage she had to repair from the Big Sister fight.

Julie went looking for some more food. Along the way she killed more splicers and avoided a Big Daddy.

Except even after she found more food she still felt hungry. This was starting to get worrying. Being active always got her hungry, but never this quickly.

Maybe she was being paranoid, but she wanted to make sure she wasn't experiencing some sort of weird side effect. "Ma, you there?"

"Yes, did you find the bathysphere station?"

"Nah, I'm still getting food."

"You must have worked up quite an appetite."

Julie bit her lip. "Yeah…Actually, I'm eating a lot more than I would be usually. I'm kind of worried I might be having a bad reaction or something."

"ADAM doesn't increase metabolism…unless…What gene tonics do you have that are active?"

"Uh…Hold on." Scout thought about what she'd seen in the gene bank. "Sports Boost, Something about messing up machines, Weapon Jockey, Eve Saver, something about cameras not noticing me, Eve Link, Short Circuit 2 (not 1), Big Game Hunter, Booze Hound (No, I haven't drunk any booze.), Extra Nutrition 2 (and only 2), and…something about regenerating EVE."

"Vhat?!"

Julie winced. Extra strong accent. Not good. "That bad?"

"Was it called Metabolic EVE?" demanded Ma.

Julie nodded. "Yeah! That's what it was! Was that a bad idea?"

"Where did you even-The Metabolic EVE tonic was discontinued while still within the testing phase because of the side effects: It causes the body's metabolism to skyrocket to the point that one has to constantly eat or risk starving. Depending on how often one uses plasmids, even that might not be enough to prevent starvation."

"Oh…" Yeah, that was bad. "Uh…So avoid plasmids until I get to a Gene Bank?"

"Yes, it would be better if you avoided plasmid use entirely as that would return your metabolism to normal, but I recognize that is difficult in this environment."

"I'll stick to telekinesis." That was easy and barely affected her. "Hey, what about Extra Nutrition?"

"I'm sure it's why you're doing as well as you are."

"No, I mean what if I got the other two? Would that like cancel it out?"

Ma was quiet for a moment. "It might, but don't try it unless you have all three Extra Nutritions. Until then you need to keep Metabolic EVE repressed. Do you understand?"

Julie's stomach growled. "Yeah, I understand."


	51. No rest for the weary

Gene Banks were thankfully fairly common, and splicers had left them alone during their various vandalizing sprees and fights. Julie only needed a few minutes to find one. She quickly pulled off a glove, let the gene bank stick her finger, and dialed in a command to turn Metabolic EVE off. She shuddered for a moment as she was injected with something that made it feel like there was ice in her veins for several seconds.

She rubbed the injection site for a moment before heading for the nearest apartment.

She was still hungry.

…And she wanted waffles for some reason. Julie groaned. She wasn't going to find any waffles around here! And if she survived it would be at least a week before she could have any…probably longer.

She went through the kitchen and found some coffee, a pep bar, and some bread. Not very balanced, but it would do. She made a face as she ate the pep bar. It tasted weird because of the EVE in it.

Julie finished her latest meal and decided she felt better but still a little hungry. She should probably look for something else before she went looking for the bathysphere station.

The next apartment had potato chips and potted meat. Julie popped a chip in her mouth. Despite being stale, it was a nice change from all the canned food she'd eaten so far.

She heard some movement outside.

Julie tensed and grabbed her revolver while Scouting outside. Surprisingly, no one was out there besides a random splicer who was just wandering by. Julie watched until he had turned a corner to be sure he wasn't going to try and get in the apartment. She went back to her body and stuffed a handful of chips into her mouth. She stuffed a second handful of chips into her mouth before eating the meat as quickly as she could without choking and left the apartment immediately afterwards.

She needed to hurry. She didn't have time to enjoy a meal.


	52. You can never be too prepared

Julie had decided to keep following the arrow while checking apartments when she could. She hadn't found anything particularly out of the ordinary besides a cat that was somehow still alive. It had hissed and ran as soon as it saw her. It was probably feral at this point so she let it go.

Julie wasn't sure where she was expecting the arrow to take her, but she was surprised to see it pointing at a building that looked very different from the apartment buildings. She looked around for a sign, but all she could find and make out was 'station'. She guessed it could be a bathysphere station…Atkins loves bathyspheres.

Julie was not going anywhere Atkins might be without properly preparing first. She needed to find a Gatherer's Garden, a Circus of Values, and hopefully an Ammo Bandito too.

Several minutes later, Julie lucked out and found a Circus of Values with an Ammo Bandito across from it. She promptly bought five First aid kits, five EVE hypos, buckshot, phosphorous shot, heavy shot, antipersonnel rounds, regular rounds, a couple of rounds of armor piercing ammo just in case, and two proximity mines. The only other thing she could think of to increase her odds was a miniturret, but you had to activate it with a hacking machine, and she had no idea where to find one. Besides, she was nervous she'd put it in a location where it'd shoot her.

She wasn't the best at planning ahead. The most she'd been able to come up with was keeping enough money available to be able to buy a first aid kit afterwards.

It took longer to find a Gatherer's Garden, but she did eventually find one that looked like someone had tried to break into it. They were tough enough that Julie decided to go ahead and see if it worked. She chose Telekinesis 3 (Finally!), inserted the ADAM, waited for several minutes, and let out a sigh of relief when the vial popped out. She injected it and experimentally tried to grab some trash. She ducked as it went flying through the space her head had just been occupying.

Okay, that was a lot more forceful than what Julie was used to, but she figured she just needed to pull and push less than usual. She tried grabbing the junk again. It still zoomed towards her faster than she would like, but she stopped it from hitting her this time and kept it in place. It shouldn't take too long to regain control over her telekinesis. It might not be a good idea to go straight to Atkins right away, but she was on a time limit.

Since Julie felt as she was as prepared as she was going to be she headed back to the maybe-bathysphere station while constantly making sure her guns were loaded and ready. She didn't know if Atkins was actually there, but the guns would be just as effective against ordinary splicers.

Julie had never actually fought a standard Australian, although from what she'd seen of Saxton Hale and heard from Sniper it sounded like they were tougher than Heavy. Or that might just be Saxton Hale. She hoped it was just Saxton Hale and a typical Australian was only as tough as a Heavy. At least she knows she can take out a Heavy by herself.

And now she'd reached the door to the station. It refused to open. Julie looked around and noticed some windows on the second floor. She jumped to one with broken glass and climbed in.

Turned out the bathysphere station had two floors with the second open to show the first floor beneath it. The first floor had several benches, and both floors had bathyspheres waiting for passengers along one wall. Most of the bathyspheres were gone or broken, but Julie wondered if she might be able to find a working one. Julie didn't see anyone, but they might just be hiding. She started laying down cyclone traps just in case as she headed towards one of the stairways, revolver in hand.

A sudden burst of wind knocked her into the wall. Julie recognized it as a plasmid and rolled to the side just in time to avoid shots from a revolver. Julie got a look at her attacker.

It was a woman in a torn up flight suit with ludicrous amounts of loose skin hanging off the visible parts of her body. She snarled and hefted what looked like a pipe. "I'm going to make you sorry you ever came here!"

Julie blinked. "Wait. You're Atkins?!" She looked nothing like a standard Australian, didn't even have any facial hair.

Atkins snarled, like she could tell what Julie was thinking. "Shut up!" She threw a very strong electro bolt. Julie nearly didn't dodge and started sending bees towards Atkins. Atkins didn't notice quickly enough. "Bees!" She swung at them, her hands lighting up with fire. Julie threw her own electro bolt and started firing with the revolver. The first two shots hit before Atkins recovered and started dodging. As the gun ran out of bullets, Julie stuck it on her pack strap. Atkins took advantage to put her fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle.

Julie did her best to keep track of the pounding sound as she placed cyclone traps around Atkins and fired off her machine gun. Atkins tried to dodge and one of the cyclone traps sent her flying up. Unable to dodge, Atkins was pelted with antipersonnel rounds.

The wall suddenly exploded outwards. Julie yelped and danced to the side as another section of wall exploded out. She spared a glance to see what had caused the explosion. It was a couple of splicers that might actually be bigger than Heavy. What the fuck? Those weren't here before! Wasn't ADAM only supposed to cause tumors as a physical side effect?

Julie propelled herself away from a heavy splicer as she noted that there were now spider splicers and a couple of normal splicers coming out of the holes. And Atkins was still alive. Wonderful. Julie started evasive maneuvers while summoning as many bees as she could.

Julie quickly became lightheaded, but the bees did their job distracting the splicers. The only one still trying to hit her was Atkins. Julie dodged Atkins' attacks as she injected an EVE hypo. Then Julie dashed over to one of the heavy splicers, shoved a proximity mine in his pocket, and propelled herself away right before it exploded. It didn't quite kill him, but she hit him with some antipersonnel rounds that did the job.

Then she went back to dodging Atkins' and the other splicers attacks. There weren't any other splicers appearing from the holes. Hopefully, there would be no backup coming. She propelled herself at a spider splicer to impale him through the chest.

Still no backup for the splicers. Julie grinned. She started tossing electro bolts. Atkins hit her with a wind blast again. Julie glared and tried to rush her. Atkins hit her with another wind blast, but Julie wasn't thrown back as much because she braced herself this time. A splicer shot her with a machine gun.

Good thing the Big Sister suit was bulletproof. Too bad there were holes. The splicer was close enough that Julie was able to swipe her harpoon through his neck before she jumped back and let out several bees. In the split second while the splicers were distracted, she injected a first aid hypo. She dodged a swipe from a spider splicer, put a cyclone trap under his feet, and swiped her needle across his back before throwing his body at the one splicer who still had a gun and dodging a bunch of electro bolts from Atkins.

Suddenly getting an idea, Julie ran behind the splicer with the gun and the heavy splicer, dodging a swipe from the heavy. Atkins ended up hitting them instead. It caused both of them to jerk around. Julie rolled her other proximity mind under the heavy splicer and ran away. The explosion took out the heavy splicer. The other one wasn't killed immediately, but given her collapse and gurgling, she wouldn't last long.

Now it was just Julie and Atkins. Atkins growled and shot more electro bolts. Julie was barely able to dodge them and fired back some of her own. Julie just needed to distract Atkins long enough to place a cyclone trap under her feet…except Atkins had apparently caught on to this tactic and used her windburst to propel herself towards Julie quickly enough that Julie couldn't catch her. Atkins swung her pipe at Julie's head.

Normally, this would have at least knocked Julie out, but the helmet absorbed enough of the impact that she was only knocked for a loop, and her survival instincts had her instinctively head-butting Atkins. Atkins jerked up and Julie was still moving and grabbing her shotgun.

Head. Shot to the head.

Julie pulled the trigger just as Atkins was recovering from the head-butt recoil. Atkins' brains were blown across the room…and Atkins fell on Julie.

Julie took a deep breath and pushed Atkins off. She injected a first aid hypo and once her head cleared up she sat up and started going through Atkins' pockets.

And there was the key! Now she just needed to find the control room. If it wasn't here, she'd try following the arrow some more. Julie put the key in her pack before going through the other splicers. They had a decent amount of money, which was good because she would probably need a shot of EVE soon.

She went through the various rooms that were marked as 'Do Not Enter' and 'Employees Only'. A couple had lockers, but one did have a complicated looking computer that looked like the one from the factory. She figured it worked the same and slipped the key into the slot and eventually flipped the switches that seemed to have something to do with locking. If she did that correctly, she should be able to leave Artemis Apartments now.

Julie paused. Maybe she could get one of the bathyspheres to work and make this her base of operations…Although that would probably be a bad idea. She went to check the bathyspheres anyway and discovered most were broken or had been damaged in the fights. One looked like it might work, but it was still locked. Julie huffed. Either the security shut down was still in place or the bathyspheres required a different genetic code besides her father's.

The first would be easy to check. She wanted to backtrack and leave those tapes anyway.


	53. A River of Blood

"How many people have you killed since you arrived in Rapture?" asked Lamb as Julie walked through Artemis Apartments.

Julie wasn't sure. She'd lost count. It had to be in the triple digits. She didn't think she'd reached quadruple digits.

"Do you even care?"

No, she did not. Well, she didn't enjoy killing the Big Daddies and Sisters, but they were the only exception.

"Is your plan to kill every person you can find?"

Not everyone.

"And what will you do once you have wiped out Rapture's population?"

Okay, now that would just be overkill. Julie would really have to go out of her way to pull that off, and it was too much of a risk anyway. Although…if that did somehow happen, she might try to see if she could get to Hephaestus and blow Rapture up. Still, she'd rather not get herself killed so she was leaving as soon as she found all the Little Sisters.

"What will you do when you are left alone in a dead city with only your victims for companionship?"

…And killed Lamb and anyone else that would ever think about making more Little Sisters.


	54. I want with talk to you

_What are you doing?_

'Leaving notes for anyone else who ends up here.' Julie stuck an audiovox tape under the couch cushion, leaving just enough visible to be seen by someone with a sharp eye.

 _I pity anyone who stumbles upon Rapture._

'Hm…' Julie mentioned nothing about their last conversation. Neither did Eleanor. 'How is your father doing?'

 _He's doing well. The Vita-Chambers still function and work on him so I don't need to worry about him dying._

Julie nodded as she moved on. 'How far has he gotten?'

 _He had to stop at Ryan Amusements due to ice blocking the railway._

Julie blinked. 'Railway?'

 _Oh, I didn't mention, did I? He is heading towards Persephone using the Atlantic Express. It's how the people in Rapture traveled long distances before bathyspheres became commonplace._

'…Can I use it? I tried using some bathyspheres before but they wouldn't work.'

 _Mother reprogrammed most of them to require her genetic key._

'Really? I got here all right.'

 _That bathysphere was kept in the lighthouse the whole time. The only ones who could get to it were the Big Sisters, and even if they had thought to reprogram it, they wouldn't have known how._

'Oh…'

 _Although I suppose if you needed one that hadn't been reprogrammed you could try going to that department store…What was it called?_

'Fontaine's Department Store.'

 _Oh, right._

'You hate him too?'

 _Do you know anyone who doesn't?_

'Nope. Me an' some of the other Little Sisters helped Dad kill him.'

 _I heard about that, but Mother never mentioned Little Sisters._

Julie shrugged as she walked through the door that led to the factory. 'Well, there weren't any cameras. Ma though it was just Dad that killed Fontaine at first.'

 _Ma?_

'Yeah, Mama Tenenbaum.'

 _Father talked to her briefly…You consider her your mother?_ Eleanor sounded confused.

'Yeah.'

 _Even though she experimented on you?_

Julie huffed. 'Look, I know it sounds weird and messed up, but she does care about us…as much as someone like her can care about someone anyway. Besides, my birth mother abandoned me under a bench right after I was born. Anyone's an improvement over that.'

It felt sort of like Eleanor winced. _I can't argue with that. I just can't recall her acting fond of us._

'It's been 10 years. She's gotten pretty good at being a mother. Give her a chance. You'll probably be staying in the same house as her if you manage to get out of here.'

Eleanor sighed. _Yes, I suppose you're right. Very well, I will do my best to get along with Dr. Tenenbaum._

'Great.' Julie frowned in thought. 'Weren't we talking about something else?'

 _Bathyspheres. We got a bit off track._

'Oh yeah…Something about Fontaine's Department Store?'

 _There was a bathysphere store. You might be able to find something that works._

Julie shook her head. 'I'm not smart enough to make that work.' She briefly thought of Engineer.

 _Who was that?_

Julie looked around before realizing that Eleanor had been talking about the image of Engineer that had briefly appeared in her head. 'Engineer; he's one of my coworkers. He could put together a bathysphere no problem.'

 _I suppose you could find a functional Big Sister suit instead. You might have noticed them swimming around._

'I don't think I can get them off a Big Sister. They're too tough to avoid damaging the suit.'

 _I see. The only other place to obtain a Big Sister suit is the Little Wonders Training Facility…_

Julie shuddered. 'I'm avoiding that place as long as possible.'

 _It's too far out of the way without a bathysphere anyway…Huh._

'What?'

 _This is the closest thing I've had to a normal conversation in years._

That was incredibly depressing. 'You need to get out more.'

 _I would if I could,_ muttered Eleanor.

Something occurred to Julie. 'Hey, how come you're talking to me so much longer this time?'

Eleanor was silent for a moment. _That's a good question. I haven't seen mother for longer than usual. She must be in the middle of something. I'd best see what she's up to._

'Okay, talk to you later.' Eleanor withdrew from Julie's mind. It was kind of amazing how used to that she was becoming. The thought of actually talking to Eleanor face to face was starting to sound bizarre.


	55. You can't always use your guide

Julie had gotten herself lost. "Dammit."

The factory was a labyrinth. She was pretty sure the only reason she'd found her way through it the first time was because of the arrow. She couldn't use it this time though because it wanted her to go somewhere else.

At least there was a map on this wall. It had been scribbled on a bit, but she could still read it. "Ugh, this place is a maze…"

 _"_ _Tell me about it."_

Julie glanced behind her and turned her attention back to the map.

"I think she's getting used to it."

Julie glanced behind her and went back to the map before doing a double take. The people had looked normal so she'd assumed it was a hallucination, but then she'd realized she couldn't see through them like standard hallucinations.

And now they were gone.

Julie looked around and sent out some bees. They buzzed around for a moment before returning to her arm. She still felt nervous about it so she went down to check it out. No one. Maybe she'd been imagining it…except there was something under that collapsed bit over there.

Julie took out her revolver and cautiously made her way over to the scrap metal. Then she holstered it as she recognized the sign. "This sure is out of the way," she muttered as she moved the wreckage so she could get to the 'Power to the People' station.

She pushed her shotgun into it and chose the electric buckshot option. She kept an eye out for splicer attracted by the noise, but none showed up.

The shotgun popped back out. "What the…" Julie picked it up and tapped on the glass globes attached to the side which appeared to have lightning dancing in them.

Yeah, she wasn't even gonna try to explain how that worked.


	56. Can you still find your way?

Julie had finally managed to find her way back to the Medical Pavilion, and now she had to find her way back through. She was starting to wonder if backtracking was really a good idea.

"Since morality was optional in Rapture, there was a lot of human experiments going on, 'specially once the ADAM started making the doctors crazy. You should definitely stay out of the surgery wing. There was this one doc called Steinman…He's been dead for a while now, but he did…horrible things…to anyone he could get his hands on." She put the audiovox on a desk where it was fairly conspicuous.

Julie paused and took a sniff as she smelled a large amount of ADAM. She could hear rumbling too. She might as well see if there was a Little Sister with that Big Daddy.

There was. She was busy harvesting from a corpse…That Julie might have made when she came through earlier.

Julie considered how to go about this. She couldn't use Security Bullseye since she'd taken out the cameras on her way through. She could hit him with Electro bolt and Incinerate while dodging attacks…Okay, these fights were somehow getting monotonous. At least the splicers talked…even if they said some creepy things. Big Daddies just roared.

Maybe Julie could take the time to get…creative.

After a quick detour and some exploring, Julie had a couple of proximity mines, several canisters of oxygen, and some chemicals she was fairly certain were flammable. It took another few minutes to find the Big Daddy and the Little Sister again.

Julie found a nice turn around a corner that she piled the containers and proximity mines in front of. Then she tossed an Incinerate at the Big Daddy and ducked around the corner.

She heard Bouncer roar and charge towards her location…right before a huge explosion went off that made Julie's ears ring. She peered around the corner.

The Bouncer was on the other side of the room and had been blown through the wall. The Little Sister was crying nearby so Julie figured he was dead. Julie quickly ran over and picked up the Little Sister, who was still crying. She kept crying after Julie Cured her. Maybe she'd been frightened by the explosion. Julie found the nearest vent and lifted her to it. The Little Sister practically bolted into it.

Maybe it was Julie she was afraid of.

Before Julie could follow that line of thought a familiar shriek tore through the air. Ah shit. She forgot about the possible Big Sister. She quickly set up some cyclone traps and started switching out the ammo in her guns.

Julie paused. Was it just her or was it getting colder? She glanced at a nearby window and realized it was starting to frost over. She decided to go for the phosphorous buck. Then she injected an EVE hypo before quickly adding a few more traps.

Then a frozen looking Big Sister appeared from seemingly nowhere with a screech and nearly froze Julie solid. The only reason this failed was because the ice blast hit Julie's arm, which was on fire. The Fire sputtered out, but it still felt like her arm was on fire somehow.

Julie rolled out of the way and fired the phosphorous buck as she tried to shake feeling back into her hand. She was really wishing she'd upgraded her Incinerate plasmid right now.

The phosphorous buck exploded…And the blood froze instantly, preventing any bleeding.

Yikes.

Julie dodged several more ice blasts as the feeling in her arm came back. This could be tricky. The air kept getting colder. She was pretty sure she'd need to keep Incinerate active just to keep from freezing.

Julie tried hitting the Big Sister with an Incinerate. This ice covering her suit melted for maybe a second before refreezing. Julie dodged another blast of ice as she landed another hit from the shotgun. Then she had to dodge several razor sharp icicles sent flying towards her.

Then the Big Sister was in front of her. Julie barely managed to propel herself backwards to avoid getting cut in half, and there was still a cut across her front that left her gasping and slapping at the injury with fire. Then she had to block more strikes from the Big Sister that sent frost spiraling down Julie's blades.

How much Winter Blast did this Sister have in her system?!

Julie put a cyclone trap against the Big Sister's stomach and sent her flying away. It was getting colder and colder. Julie thought she might die of hypothermia before she could kill the Big Sister. She could try moving to another area, but she wasn't sure that would work. Her thought process was interrupted as the Big Sister rushed in again and tried to freeze Julie solid.

Plasmids weren't working so well. Better turn to weapons.

Hey, if the Big Sister was frozen, maybe she could be shattered! Julie took out the machine gun and started firing. The Big Sister was caught off guard and took several bullets before starting to dodge. The blood had already frozen solid.

How was it even circulating if it was that cold?

Oh, idea!

Julie melted some ice and threw the water at the Big Sister while dodging some more slashes. It wasn't a lot, but it did make the ice on the Big Sister a little thicker. Julie started melting as much ice as she could (and that was the easy part because now there was so much ice that she could barely keep her balance) and throwing the water at the Big Sister. Sometimes the water hit. Sometimes it didn't. During the whole time it kept getting colder, and Julie had to dodge attacks.

She wasn't able to dodge all of them and had to stop to inject herself with EVE and a first aid hypo.

But the Big Sister was starting to move more slowly as the ice on her body started to build up, and it's _working_. Julie's lungs were burning from exhaustion and sheer cold, and she had to end this soon.

Julie dodged a stab that went wide and slammed water into the Big Sister's wrist, completely immobilizing it. The Big Sister growled and started slamming it into the wall to break it.

Out of instinct and a desire to end this and get somewhere warmer Julie took out the revolver. The armor covered most of the body, but it wasn't perfect. Julie'd figured that out with all the injuries she'd gotten and knew the vulnerable spots, like the armpit.

Julie shoved the revolver into the Big Sisters's armpit and pulled the trigger until it clicked.

It looked like little red jewels were flying even though Julie knew it was blood. There was an important artery that she couldn't remember the name of, and it must have been hit at some point.

The Big Sister recoiled and actually retreated with a hand going to the bullet wound. Julie wasn't sure if it was a fatal injury, but the Big Sister was still moving. Julie melted ice and threw it at the Big Sister's feet. The Big Sister panicked and started chipping at the ice while Julie ran behind her. Too much armor on the back. Were there any other big arteries?

Legs! Julie started tearing at the exposed portion of the Big Sister's inner thighs.

She felt bad about it, but she wanted to live, and sometimes you have to do terrible things to survive.

The Big Sister fell back into Julie. Julie couldn't tell if it was an intentional move or the Big Sister's legs giving out. Julie shot away just in case.

The Big Sister didn't move. There was a lot of blood. Julie was having trouble thinking. Was she alive or dead? Julie took off the Big Sister's helmet and noted her eyes were still open. Julie put her fingers on the Big Sister's neck.

No pulse.

Julie let out a sigh of relief. It felt like knives in her chest. She needed to leave.

Julie hesitated for a moment and closed the Big Sister's eyes.

It was all she could do.


	57. Sometimes, guilt is your prize

Julie wondered if her skin was blue. It felt like it was blue. She let Incinerate stay on long enough that she started to smell burning flesh. She clenched her hands and turned off the fire as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She swallowed. Her throat felt swollen.

Julie was tempted to find the nearest Gatherer's Garden and buy the highest level of Incinerate available in the hopes it would get rid of this coldness, but she didn't know if she had enough ADAM. She couldn't think enough to figure out how much she had.

She turned Incinerate on again and held her hands near her feet. She couldn't feel them. That was bad, but she was hoping it wasn't frostbite since she could still walk. She let out a hiss as a sensation like stabbing knives started to go through her legs.

"So you have taken another of the Little Sisters. Killed another two Protectors."

Julie ignored Lamb.

"You have killed many members of the Family with no remorse to be seen."

Julie stood.

"I'd thought you psychopathic."

Julie had no idea what that was but figured it was some kind of insult.

"But…It seems I was incorrect."

Julie paused.

"I did not notice at first, but when you fight the Protectors, when you end their lives, you treat their bodies as if you know them, as if you wish you had not killed them."

Julie started walking again.

"I have to wonder…"

Fuck.

"Why are they the only adversary you empathize with?"


	58. That is something you must live with

The vial and syringe thumped out into the holding part of the Gatherer's Garden. Julie quickly started filling the syringe. It turned out she could afford the third level of Incinerate. She immediately injected the plasmid, and it felt like her veins were on fire. She waited for the burning to subside as she heard some cyclone traps go off. She ignored the dead splicer and sat down and let fire dance around her arms as she wrapped them around her legs and she leaned against the Gatherer's Garden. It was a practical inferno. She could smell her flesh burning. She could feel pain, but she couldn't tell if it was from the fire or the freezing.

She was cold. She was on her own in a city of lunatics. She had no way out. She was constantly fighting for her life with no respawn. She was scared. It was all hitting her at once, and there was nothing she could do about it.

 _Julie?_

'…'

 _Julie, are you all right?_

'…'

 _Julie, I can't help you if you won't tell me what's wrong._

"…I don't want to be here…"

 _…_ _Then why are you here?_

"Because I thought I needed to come here, but you and your dad are here. You're rescuing Little Sisters too. I…Me…I just…just…" Were her efforts worth anything? "…I'm pointless."

 _Don't say that. Father is doing his best, but he is not infallible. He is unlikely to find all the Little Sisters on his own, and the Vita-Chambers may fail, as unlikely as that is. Not to mention that Mother is going after both of you. That means she has to split her forces into two instead of sending them all against one of you. In that way, you help Father, and Father helps you._

That did help Julie feel a bit better. She took a few deep breaths. 'How is he doing?'

 _He's in the unfortunately named Pauper's Drop. He's having a bit of spat with Aunt Gracie._

Julie decided not to ask who Aunt Gracie was. Her body temperature felt about back to normal, and she felt calmer and more clear-headed. She remembered something important. 'I think you're mom's starting to suspect…something about me.'

 _Has she figured out who you really are?_

'I'm not sure. What would she do if she figured out?'

 _I don't think she planned for someone like you interfering with her plans. She might keep trying to kill you while trying to talk you into defecting._

Julie clenched her hands into fists. 'Not happening.'

 _I don't think she'd actually be able to do anything unless she managed to capture you. She does try to…re-educate troublesome individuals, and I know she's done something to alter the programming of the other Big Sisters._

'Don't get caught. Got it. Hey, do you know what was up with that Big Sister I just fought? She was freezing everything! I think I had hypothermia…' Julie shuddered and rubbed her hands together.

 _Oh…Yes…Mother kept her away from others, even Little Sisters, because of the amount of damage she caused simply by being around them. I think she spent most of her time outside. It sounds like she had several plasmids and tonics focusing on ice and had some sort of extreme reaction that should have killed her._

'Sounds like these splicers Sally told me about once. They used to make a drinkable version of Winter Blast. Splicers who drank too much of it had ice spikes of ice start growing out of their body.'

 _Maybe she harvested them._ Eleanor sighed sadly. _I suppose…it doesn't matter anymore._

Julie felt guild for a moment. '…No…' she agreed.

 _I can't make any promises, but if Mother lets on that she has figured out you were a Little Sister I will let you know._

'Okay.' The link cut. Julie cursed and shook her arms. She'd burnt her arms while thawing herself.

Fuck.


	59. Not much longer

Julie messily finished painting the arrow with her finger. Not the neatest job, but she was lucky she'd found any paint; it would have been pushing it to look for a paintbrush.

She placed the audiovox under the arrow and walked over to where the bathysphere would arrive should someone else stumble across the lighthouse.

It was a bit tricky, but you could see it from there. It was impossible to miss once you got closer.

Of course, this would all be completely pointless if the Family moved the tapes, but it still seemed like a good idea to leave instructions to help out anyone else who was unlucky enough to stumble across Rapture…assuming Rapture would still be around after this was all over. Julie was hoping that if Lamb was taken out Rapture would start falling apart again.

Now she just had to get back to Artemis Apartments. At least she didn't have to worry about getting lost this time. Well, maybe she'd find something useful on the way.

Julie checked the bathysphere controls to be sure they still worked and left the welcome area.


	60. I miss the sun

_"_ _You are my sunshine…"_

Julie looked around the Medical Pavilion for a moment before deciding it was just another auditory hallucination.

 _"_ _My only sunshine…"_

This women had an accent…She sounded familiar.

 _"_ _You make me happy…"_

She didn't sound happy. She sounded depressed.

 _"_ _When skies are grey…"_

Julie suddenly couldn't help but wonder if it was even legal to sing this song in Rapture.

 _"_ _You'll never know just…"_

"How much I love you." Julie froze up.

 _"_ _Please don't…"_ The singer's voice started to crack as she started to break down crying. _"…take…my sun…shine away…"_

That…That had been bizarre. She'd never gotten caught up in a memory like that before. That seemed to be something that would happen after a splicer started going crazy. Did that mean she was starting to go crazy? ADAM shouldn't be able to drive her crazy!

…Although she guessed other things could make her go nuts. That hadn't occurred to her before now, and it terrified her. She didn't want to be crazy like the splicers. She knew some people could go crazy and stay functional, like Dad or Medic, but some people ended up like Masha, completely unable to take care of themselves.

Julie decided she needed to take a short break and think. Julie paced back and forth. If she was able to keep working on her own, she'd be okay. She probably wouldn't even notice she was insane. If she ended up crazy like Masha was…Well, she might still be able to work for RED. Whoever was in charge didn't seem to care about that sort of thing. Otherwise, she wasn't sure what she'd do. She guessed she'd have to stay at home like Masha and let her family take care of her, but she wouldn't enjoy it. She'd probably fight it.

Julie let out a frustrated snarl as she shot some splicers. She had no idea what to do if she was going crazy. Would it even matter? She wouldn't be able to think straight or remember any plans if she went crazy. At least she didn't think she would. Insanity could be weird like that.

Julie huffed and started walking again. She definitely wouldn't be able to do anything about her sanity right now, and it wasn't like it would hit all at once. She could worry about it later.


	61. What a sad song

_"_ _Ring around the Rosie."_

Julie tilted her head curiously at the scene of several Little Sisters spinning in a ring around a Rosie Big Daddy.

 _"_ _Pocketful of posies."_

It seemed…almost familiar.

 _"_ _Ashes, ashes."_

Like she'd seen this before.

 _"_ _We all fall down."_

The hallucination dispersed with the giggles of little girls.

Julie stared for another moment. Then she started moving and took out her radio. "Ma?"

"Yes, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to hear your voice."


	62. Into The Wilds

Julie was back in Artemis Apartments. She didn't really care too much about where she went from here. She thought about the various buildings connected to the area.

Hadn't there been a zoo nearby? It would be kind of fun to go there, even if it was only for a little while…Except she wasn't here to have fun, and the arrow might be pointing somewhere else. Still, it was pretty close by compared to entrances to other areas…Maybe it was at least worth checking out.

Julie made her way to the entrance, occasionally picking off any splicers that tried to attack her. She could tell when she found the entrance. An earthy smell was coming from the door. The arrow suddenly shot out from under her feet and went under the door. Julie blinked in surprise before grinning. Looked like she'd get to see the zoo after all. She walked over to the door and was pleased to see it open to the walkway between buildings. Then she frowned as she noticed the next door was already open. Was it broken? If it was she definitely couldn't stay in the zoo. If the walkway broke and the door was failing then the whole place would flood, and she would drown.

Julie walked over to examine the door. It didn't look rusty, and none of the plants on the other side seemed to be blocking anything. Actually…Julie looked more closely. It looked like the vines had been cut recently. It was kind of bizarre. Julie stepped closer to the plants to get a better look.

The door abruptly slammed shut.

Well, nice to know the door did work after all. Julie walked back over.

The door didn't open.

Julie tapped the door. Nothing. She tried turning the handle. Nothing. Was it locked? Had Lamb done this? Had Julie walked into a trap? It wasn't like Lamb had known Julie was going to come here since Julie hadn't really been planning to. There weren't exactly a lot of places for Julie to go though. Lamb would only have to plan for a few areas.

Julie looked at the trees. Should she try burning them down? Julie thought about her various experiences with the Pyros and decided that was a good way to die of smoke inhalation. She'd just have to try and figure out how to get around in this jungle.


	63. They're here

The arrow had stopped working for some reason. Julie had no idea why. She'd tried finding her way on her own. She'd been wandering around for nearly 10 minutes with nothing to show for it. She'd have expected Lamb to brag at her by now or at least send some splicers after her, but Julie hadn't seen anyone. There'd been a couple of rabbits, but that was it.

Julie looked around the…it looked almost like a jungle except for the cement under her feet. Julie briefly had the urge to pick one of the nearby exotic looking flowers before quashing it. She didn't have the time, and there wasn't anywhere to keep it anyway.

Was she even going in a straight line? The plants were thick, and no path was visible. She wasn't very good at navigating forests…or any kind of wilderness. She was a city girl, born and raised. She tried to remember anything she'd ever heard about navigating, but all that came to mind was that moss grew on the north side of trees.

Did that even apply here?

Her radio crackled to life. Julie answered. "That you-"

"You are in a heap of trouble!"

Julie instinctively jerked the radio away before realizing that voice had been very familiar. "Soldier?!

"Get ready to be court-martialed so hard that your grandparents will feel it!" Yeah, definitely Soldier.

Julie felt like she couldn't breathe. Soldier was here. He couldn't be alone. He wouldn't be able to find the place on his own. The others would be with him. In Rapture. Where she never wanted them to come because even they wouldn't come out unscathed. "What the Hell are you doing here?!" she shouted back over the radio.

"Your leave was denied," came Spy's voice

Julie's heart sank. "Dammit!"

"If you voluntarily give yourself up, you may escape with your hide intact," continued Spy.

Great, now she was in danger on the surface too. Julie thought a moment and decided she had to take the risk. "Can't."

"Can't or won't?" pressed Spy.

Julie supposed it was both, but she wasn't going to say that. "You can't wait for me at the lighthouse?"

"No."

Julie sighed. Of course they wouldn't. They were not the sort to retreat just because you asked them too. "I gotta do this," said Julie. "Even if it kills me."

"Suit yourself," said Spy. "Don't expect us to go easy on you."

Julie groaned. Was she going to have to fight her own team now? "Whatever…" She couldn't believe they'd managed to find Rapture. "How'd you get here anyway?"

"Your sister."

"Oh…" They didn't say which sister, but it was probably Masha. Most of the others wouldn't tell RED if they knew she was already in Rapture, but Masha had never fully recovered from her childhood. All of her sisters knew where to find the coordinates to Rapture and how to activate the bathyspheres…and then she realized a hole in that logic. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How did you get the radio frequency I'm using? Masha wouldn't know that."

There was a bit of silence before she heard Engineer say, "It was just set on that frequency."

They found a radio with her frequency. Who knew her frequency? Her Ma, but Ma wouldn't trust RED even if she recognized them. The only other person was Eleanor, and if Eleanor knew RED was here, her mother probably did as well. "Crap! She knows you're here! That means they know you're here!"

"Who is 'they'?" demanded Spy

"The Family."

"A crime ring?"

"A cult." Something else occurred to Julie. "Please tell me you sent the bathysphere back up."

"Why?"

"You didn't, did you?" No, no, no. Lamb would know that and was too smart to just leave it. "Crap…they've probably dismantled the bathysphere." She needed to stay calm. What should she do? What should _they_ do? "We'll need another way out…"

"Scout…"

Julie barely heard Spy. "There's a bunch of bathyspheres in Fontaine's Department store. Engie, do you think you could piece one together?"

"Probably."

"You are not the one asking questions!" shouted Soldier.

Julie took a deep breath to try and calm down. She needed to think rationally. "Guys, please. This place…" Her voice cracked. She swallowed and did her best to continue. "Rapture is Hell on Earth. If I never had to come back here…" And Julie panicked because she'd just given away that she'd been to Rapture before, and the idea of them knowing the things that had been done to her, the things she'd done…

She didn't want them to know. She'd rather die than let them know. She knew how they'd look at her. She said the first thing that came to mind in the hopes they would forget what she just let slip. "Even you guys will have trouble surviving. You need to get outta here. I know you're not happy with me right now, but I know how to get around Rapture."

"And why should we trust you?" asked Spy.

That hurt more than Julie thought it would. Why would they trust her? Why would she trust them? They only worked together because of a job. Julie searched for a reason for them to listen to her. "Well, you're stuck at the bottom of the sea in a ticking time bomb. You'll need help from someone if you want to know where everything is."

Silence. She heard whispering over the radio, but couldn't make it out.

A branch cracking caught her attention and she pulled out her handgun. She'd somehow managed to forget she was practically in a jungle, probably full of splicers, possibly with some dangerous animals that had managed to survive. She scanned the trees but didn't see anything obvious.

Then again…city girl. Would she be able to notice if something was there?

"We are going to see if the bathysphere is intact before we consider your…plan," said Spy.

"Great," said Julie, still scanning the trees. "If it still works send it back up. You'll want a way out, believe me."

"We will contact you momentarily."

The radio crackled off.

Julie ran took her helmet off and ran her free hand down her face. This was a disaster. She paced for a moment, not caring she was in the middle of enemy territory.

RED shouldn't be here!

Julie turned the radio on. "Ma, we gotta problem!"

"How severe?"

"My coworkers are here."

"The mercenaries?" asked her Ma in stunned disbelief. "The ones that kill each other on a daily basis?"

"Yeah…My leave wasn't approved, and they came to get me, and now they're probably stuck here," rambled Scout.

"Are they going to kill us?" asked her Ma.

"Well, not you. Maybe me for running off because I'm AWOL, but I didn't mean to go AWOL, and I was gonna go back if I didn't get killed."

"Can you keep them away from the Little Ones?"

Julie groaned. "I'm nowhere near them! And…" She winced. "I don't want 'em to see me like this," she muttered.

Ma said nothing. "We will have to travel back together if we all survive."

"I'll Cure myself before I see them," said Julie. "I'll say my clothes got messed up and I thought I could disguise myself like Spy."

"We're going to have to explain how we know about this place and the Little Sisters."

"I'll tell them Dad was on a plane that crashed nearby. That he got stuck in here for a while and had to splice." Technically true. She just had to leave out that he crashed the plane. "They probably saw him. Ought ta scare 'em offa splicing."

"It could work, but if they find out the truth…I don't want to make them angry by lying to them."

"They'll get angry if you tell them the truth," pointed out Julie. "They're assholes, but they have some standards."

"We'll just have to see. Let me know if anything comes up with them, but I will be busy with…Minerva's Den. I need to observe our agent there."

Julie blinked. "We got a third man now?"

"Yes, he is likely to stay in Minerva's Den. If he succeeds in his mission, I may be able to cure ADAM sickness."

That was a big deal. A cure wouldn't be able to do anything for her or the sisters, but it would help Dad a lot, possibly the Big Daddies they were working with too.

Maybe the splicers if Ma decided to go that far.

"Well, I'm hoping to talk to them soon. They're checking on the bathysphere." Julie huffed. "They didn't send it back up."

"Scheiße."

"I know, but I think we might be able to find something in Fontaine's old store. I know that you gotta go to Fort Frolic to get there." And Julie was not looking forward to that. "But I'm not sure how to get to Fort Frolic from where I am."

"Where are you?"

"Noah's Zoo."

"I think there's an entrance to Ryan University, and you can get to Fort Frolic from there," said Ma.

Julie nodded. "Okay, I'm not sure how to get there, but I will try."

"Good. I will leave you so you can take their next call."

Julie nodded as her mother hung up. Now she just had to wait for the guys to call back…while trying to figure out how to get around an artificial jungle.

This was gonna suck


	64. Another Family

Julie had been trying to contact Eleanor mentally while waiting for RED to call her back, but hadn't gotten anything. She was starting to get worried about both of them, so when her radio crackled back to life she was immensely relieved. "So how's the bathysphere?"

"I believe you have me mistaken for someone else," said a man with an Indian accent.

Julie tensed. This wasn't a voice she'd heard yet, but he probably had something to do with Lamb. "Who is this?"

"Suresh Sheti."

"Who?" Julie hadn't heard the name before, but it sounded Indian, which matched his accent.

"Think of me as the leader of my own family."

"That doesn't tell me anything except that ya got a cult like Lamb," said Julie. "And how do I know your not cut from the same cloth as her?"

"Rest assured, I have neither the resources nor desire to perform the same actions as Lamb's family. We simply do our best to survive in this section of Rapture to the extent that we have cut off contact with the rest of the city to avoid contact with her family."

"I got in here," argued Julie.

"I let you in," said Sheti. "As a favor to a woman who did a service to me."

Julie frowned. "Who?"

"The Dead One."

Well, if she was dead she couldn't do anything to Julie. "What's the catch?"

"No catch. I agreed to let you in and out of our home. However, the rest of RED was not part of our deal."

Julie's thoughts screeched to a halt. "How do you know about RED?"

"I know many things. I know you came here because of Lamb's actions. I know you are traveling to the late Frank Fontaine's department store. I know you were once a Little Sister."

It should not be possible for him to know that unless Ma had told him, and Julie could not see her doing something like that without giving Julie some sort of warning. He was officially a scary man. "What do you want?"

"While we did our best to cut off the rest of Rapture…We did not account for the vents or airlocks. We resolved the problem, but not before a Little Sister and a Big Sister managed to find their way in. As you are already hunting them, I doubt it will cause you any grief to remove them from the area."

"Nah, I'll do it, but how is the Little Sister going to leave once I cure her?"

Sheti chuckled. "So, that is the path you've chosen."

Scout huffed. "Well?"

"We welded most of the vents shut, but some were bolted shut instead. I will have my followers direct you to the nearest once you have need of them."

"Are your followers splicers?" pressed Julie.

"Yes, and they are insane, but I have…trained them to ignore their cravings."

Julie was sure that 'trained' wasn't the right word. "Fine, but if you try to screw me over I will find you and kill you."

"Please, you couldn't pay me to be in the same room as you."

Nice to know they were in agreement.


	65. On your own again

It was another couple of minutes before RED contacted her again. She decided not to mention Sheti.

"All right. How do we get to the department store?" demanded Spy.

"That's kind of tricky," admitted Julie. "It was sunk as a makeshift prison for a while."

"What."

"Long story." Maybe she'd tell them later. "Only way there is through Fort Frolic. Er…Hopefully Cohen won't be around. Just in case, don't let Pyro set his art on fire." Her father seemed convinced Cohen could survive anything, and she'd spent enough time in Fort Frolic as a Little Sister to understand why.

"And how do we get there?" pressed Spy.

"Well, can't go there like Dad did," muttered Julie.

"Little Scout's father came from here?" asked Heavy.

Julie took a deep breath. Might as well start laying out the story. "He was in a plane crash. Only survivor. Stumbled across it. He…used plasmids. They made him sick."

"I am sorry," said Heavy.

And Julie blinked because Heavy sounded genuinely sorry and sympathetic. Julie abruptly realized her eyes were tearing up and quickly blinked them away. She swallowed a couple of times. "If you go to that balcony and climb down and go east for about 200 meters you'll find a map shop. None of the maps are current, but it'll make things easier if you can find one of Rapture."

"We do not need a map!" proclaimed Soldier.

"Yes, we do," said Demo. "I've already lost track of where we are twice."

Julie nodded, understanding perfectly. She was from Rapture and still managed to get lost. "Could you call me back once you find a map? I'm in the zoo, and I'm kind of worried about escaped animals."

Spy sighed. "Fine. We will speak later."

Julie winced. She really hoped that she'd be able to hide her past from Spy. Now, she just had to figure out how to find the Little Sister and Big Sister.

Julie stared at her feet for a moment and tried willing the arrow to appear. Nothing. She made an annoyed sound. Why'd it stop? It had been showing her where to go pretty accurately so far …Wait. Could it only show her set locations? Maybe if something she needed to find was moving around it didn't work and she had to find it herself. She wasn't sure how much sense that made, but it was the only thing she could think of. She'd just have to try actively looking for the Sisters.

Julie thought a moment. She'd try sniffing them out first. It was the only thing she could do at the moment anyway.


	66. Keep Looking

Tracking by scent was working about as well as the other areas: Not so great. Too much ADAM in general. Julie couldn't tell what the ADAM belonged to because it all smelled the same. She'd have to figure out some other way to go about this. Had her Dad ever mentioned anything about how he went looking for Little Sisters? He'd listen for Big Daddies, but it didn't sound like this area had any. Something about vents too. If the Little Sister was still trying to climb in them that might be something.

The radio abruptly came on. Scout answered it, but didn't say anything. "It's incomplete, but we have a map," came Spy's voice

Oh good, it was RED this time. "Great. Can you see something labeled 'Quarantine'?" Unless something came up, they should be able to use the same path as her.

"Yes. Some of the route is missing, but I'm sure we'll figure it out."

As she'd reached quarantine without any problems only a couple of hours ago she figured they'd be okay. "You can get to the Medical Pavilion through there. See if the way is intact." Then she hung up because that was all there was to it and she needed to keep looking for the Little Sister.

Might as well look for a vent.


	67. Don't think poorly of her

Julie had found a vent but no signs that anyone had been around it. None that she could see anyway. She turned around. Something snarling jumped at her. Julie instinctively raised her hands so that it was impaled on her blades. "Jesus!" The animal writhed as it died. Julie just stared. It had feathers, but it looked like a pig, which was weird because pigs can't jump like that.

Julie sniffed the blood on the needle. Definitely ADAM present. Had someone been modifying the animals? They'd looked pretty normal when she was a kid from what she could remember so it would have been after the war started, which seemed pretty pointless.

Julie glanced around. She didn't see anything else, but that didn't mean something else wasn't out there. Were other animals contaminated with ADAM? Julie wondered if they could be harvested like humans.

Julie got another crazy idea.

She picked up the feathered pig and started looking around for an area free of trees for her to place the pig…only for the radio to come back on. "We seem to have drawn the ire of a British woman," said Spy.

"Oh." Julie had expected as much. "That's Sophia Lamb. She's the head of the cult."

"Do you know anything else about her?"

"She's a bitch." That place looked good.

"I meant anything useful," deadpanned Spy

Julie dropped the pig. "She's a shrink, has a daughter who's working against her. Was in prison for a while, but Ryan threw lots of people in the slammer for bogus charges." She grabbed some vines and started winding them around trees to maybe keep out predators. "So did you get to the Medical Pavilion?"

"Yes, and where do you suggest we go from here?"

"The gynecology ward. There's a hole in one of the walls."

"What is gincology?" asked Soldier.

"Does it have to do with gin?" asked Demo.

"It's the study of women's reproductive organs," deadpanned Medic. Julie snorted. "I wonder if there are any medical supplies we can salvage?"

Julie sobered up. "Well you can check, but I'm pretty sure I salvaged everything when I was down there, and you shouldn't use the medicine down here anyway. It's probably got ADAM in it." Julie paused. "Do ya know what that is?"

"You left a tape saying it causes tumors and insanity," answered Spy.

"Yeah, bullets and money oughta be okay. Not sure if the bullets work with our guns, but you could probably steal a gun from a dead splicer."

"I prefer my own gun," said Spy. "And after gynecology?"

"You need to go to Vulcan's Forge, the factory district." She looked at the vine barrier. That was as good as it was gonna get, and if it didn't work…

She might be seeing RED sooner than she thought.

"This would be easier if you could meet up with us," said Spy.

Julie tensed as she walked away. "Yeah, I'm taking care of a few things. Can't put 'em off. Gotta take care of things here and…probably need to take care of a few things in Fort Frolic."

"By yourself?"

Julie winced. "Yeah, sorry. We're on a time limit now. If we were closer it'd probably be okay, but it's too risky. We'll meet up later, 'kay?" Hopefully after Julie was able to Cure herself. "You guys be careful, okay?"

"I think we'll be fine," said Spy.

She hoped he was right.


	68. Her life has been cruel

After several more attempts, Julie finally managed to contact Eleanor. _Something wrong Julie?_

'Did you give RED a radio?'

 _Oh, they were able to contact you then?_

'So, that was you!'

 _Yes, I recognized the Engineer from your memories. The radio was broken, but I thought he would be able to fix it._

Julie nodded absentmindedly. 'Yeah, he could turn a toaster into a gun…Could you keep an eye on them?'

 _You're not going to join them?_

'I'm gonna try and make things easier for them…Plus they don't know about all…this,' explained Julie as she gestured at her world in general. 'They don't even know I'm a girl.'

 _Don't even…How did they miss something like that?_ Eleanor asked incredulously.

'I don't have many curves, and I'm good at making my voice sound deeper,' explained Julie. 'Not many women in this business.'

 _I think you should tell them. They're going to find out eventually._

Julie winced. She was still growing so her curves might become more noticeable. She wasn't looking forward to that conversation. 'Yeah…I'll think about it. Maybe now's not the best time.' She paused. 'I think I'm being followed.'

 _Who has my mother sent after you this time?_

'Actually, I haven't heard her since I got to Noah's Zoo.'

 _Hm, that's one of the few areas not under her control. Is anyone actually living there?_

'Some Indian guy that says he has his own family. Haven't seen anyone though…I'm just gonna get out of here as quickly as possible.'

 _All right. I will let you know if your friends encounter any trouble that requires your assistance._

Julie wondered if she and RED _were_ friends.


	69. It is not an easy thing to share

Julie had realized she hadn't seen any vending machines in the zoo around the time she noticed she was being followed by multiple animals.

Fuck.

She could not replenish her ammo or first aid kits or EVE hypos. So she would have to be careful about using her plasmids and guns. She would be better off sticking to her blades outside of an emergency…especially since she was going to have to fight a Big Sister later.

Julie was used enough to double jumping that it normally took a negligible amount of EVE, but she was still getting the hang of her stronger telekinesis. It lessened how much she could use it before she needed to do something to replenish her EVE.

This was gonna suck.

Julie stopped. The animals stopped. Julie stood still for several moments before one got impatient and rushed her. Julie was able to see that it was a wolf before she jammed the harpoon in its neck. The rest of the wolves in the pack came out from between the trees, apparently deciding stealth wasn't going to help at this point. Julie had never seen a wolf up close before, but these looked huge! Julie quickly removed the dead wolf and prepared to fight.

The wolves circled her, but didn't attack. Julie cautiously turned to keep an eye on them. She moved towards one, but it moved back, and the circle adjusted itself. Well, that could be bad. She might have to use plasmids after all. Maybe if she jerked one towards her…

One of the wolves behind her suddenly went for her leg. It didn't get through the suit material, but it still hurt. Julie grabbed it with telekinesis for a moment before stabbing at it. It yelped and ran away as another wolf grabbed at her arm. In a moment of creativity, she turned on Incinerate for a brief moment. The wolf yelped and ran away just as another one jumped on her back. A couple more latched onto her legs. Big mistake. She slammed her blades through their heads. The wolf on her back had figured out that it couldn't bite onto anything that would cause damage and jumped off.

One wolf let out a couple of barks, and then the pack just ran off.

Julie blinked. Well…That had been unexpected. Maybe the ADAM hadn't driven the wolves completely insane like the humans. She checked herself over to make sure she wasn't bleeding and glanced at the three wolf corpses. How to go about…Maybe she could balance one on the basket and breathing tank.

After a moment of messy rearranging, Julie had one wolf on her back and was dragging the other two by their tails. Hopefully, this would be enough to attract a Little Sister.

And then her radio went off.

Julie groaned and awkwardly stuck one under her left arm. Okay, that wasn't gonna work. She tried clutching both tails in her left hand instead. It was still very awkward, but it worked. Julie grabbed the radio.

"Scout." Spy sounded annoyed, but so was she.

"Kind of busy here." Julie had to readjust her grip on the wolf tails.

"Do…I believe you called them Little Sisters?"

Julie frowned. "What about 'em?"

"Do they have white skin and glowing, yellow eyes?"

"Yeah, you see one? They're harmless."

"One's hiding behind Heavy and refusing to let go of him."

Julie abruptly came to a halt as her heart stopped. She shook her head. "Stop whatever you're doing and get her to a hidey hole. If a Big Daddy or Big Sister sees her with you, they won't stop 'til you're all dead."

"Hidey hole?"

It took Julie a moment to realize she'd accidentally used the Sister term. "Vents with leaves and flower petals. Little Sisters use them to travel around without a Big Daddy and hide from splicers. They're all over the place so it shouldn't be hard to find one, but you need to find one as fast as possible."

Sniper said something in the background before Medic suddenly took control of the radio. "Why does the man in the diving suit have no skin?"

Julie made a face. He'd actually tried taking a Big Daddy apart? She'd have to make sure something happened to those tools. "I dunno." Honestly, it always seemed unnecessary to her. "It's not important. Just get her in a vent." She hung up to hopefully get her point across.

As Julie started walking again, she abruptly realized that if a splicer had killed the Big Daddy the Little Sister would have been harvested. What on Earth was she doing there on her own?


	70. Even with those most trusted

Julie dropped the three wolves on the pig. The ADAM smell was pretty strong, but so was the smell of blood. It might actually attract more predators.

Well, Julie could add them to the pile.

She climbed one of the trees so she could keep an eye and hopefully stay out of sight. She'd wait for a little while to see if anything showed up. She pulled out her revolver just in case. Even if it wasn't a set of sisters, a bullet to the head would kill it.

Of course if nothing happened for a while she'd have to move on and try something else. Can't waste time. After thinking for a moment Julie started counting. She would move once she reached…1000. That seemed like a nice, round number.

Around 749 she heard rustling and tensed up. A second later a Big Sister landed next to the bodies. A Little Sister grumpily climbed down from the basket on her back. "Is it time again already?"

Julie studied the Big Sister for a moment. Unlike the other Big Sisters she'd fought, this one seemed to have taken some damage. At least her suit had. It was hard to tell where the bloodstains came from. Julie hoped they were the Big Sister's. Didn't matter. Julie switched to her shotgun, took aim, and fired the solid slug straight at the Big Sister.

The Big Sister whirled and leapt at Julie with a screech. Julie fired off the shotgun a couple more times before blocking an attack with it and kicking the Big Sister in the stomach. Julie set the Big Sister on fire as she jumped down from the tree. Julie was pretty sure it was hurting the Big Sister. The Big Sister attacked Julie, still on fire. Julie just grunted and ran an electric jolt through the Big Sister. It made her freeze up long enough for Julie to try stabbing her. It didn't do much because of the suit and belts, but Julie figured it would at least leave some deep bruises. Julie propelled the two apart and pulled out her machine gun. The Big Sister did a good job of dodging the bullets. She got close enough that Julie had to dodge a swipe from the harpoon.

Julie shot some more fire at the Big Sister. Her hands were starting to hurt a bit. That couldn't be good. She knocked the Big Sister back again and considered using bees instead of the fire, but decided not to bother. Instead, Julie fired the shotgun again before swinging it at the Big Sister like a bat.

She missed her bat…

Julie knocked the big sister back again. When the Big Sister jumped at her, Julie put a cyclone trap behind her to propel her forwards at a faster speed than she was expecting. The Big Sister wasn't able to correct in time to avoid landing on Julie's harpoon. This time it impaled her. That wouldn't have killed her if she hadn't gripped Julie's wrist and ripped the harpoon out. The spearhead meant the harpoon did even more damage on the way out…and that was a lot of blood. It must have hit an artery.

The Big Sister made a weak sound and collapsed. Julie glanced at the Little Sister. She was drinking from her bottle, like she hadn't even noticed two Big Sisters fighting to the death off to the side. Maybe she hadn't. Little Sister La La Land could be weird like that. Julie noticed the Big Sister staring at the Little Sister too. "Don't worry. I'll take care of her." Julie was fairly certain that was the end of this Big Sister. Then she wondered if something was going to eat the Big Sister's body after she left.

The Little Sister walked over with a yawn. "I'm ready for dream time, Big Sister," she mumbled. Julie scooped her up and thought for a moment before deciding not to Cure the Little Sister until she found a vent. Just in case. The Little Sister yawned and curled up. Julie nudged her towards the basket on her back. The Little Sister climbed in and almost immediately her breath evened out in a pattern that indicated she'd fallen asleep.

Julie didn't think she'd ever seen a Little Sister sleeping outside of the vents or orphanage. They must have been here for a while.

The radio crackled on. "Good job," said Sheti.

"So, where's the vent?" demanded Julie.

"My people will be arriving momentarily to show you the way. They use teleportation. Do try to avoid killing them."

"If they try attacking either of us, I'm killing them," said Julie.

"They won't attack you," said Sheti.

Julie seriously doubted that, but before she could say anything several pops indicated Houdini splicers had arrived. Julie got into a fighting stance but held back from actually attacking. Some of the Houdini splicers grabbed the dead pig and wolves and teleported out. Julie watched the one remaining Houdini splicer.

He turned his back on her and started walking away.

Well, he wasn't attacking. Julie followed him while keeping an eye and ear out for any surprise attacks.

After a few minutes, the splicer walked over to a wall and started cutting at some plants covering it. Julie looked around him. She did see some metal under all the plant life. It could be a vent.

Something roared. Julie spun. "What was that?"

"You stink of fresh blood," said the splicer in a monotone voice.

Julie glanced at herself, noting that she was covered in still drying blood. "So?"

"Fresh blood means fresh meat."

"…Oh." That made sense. "Right. How much longer is this gonna take?"

The splicer finished cutting away the vegetation and opened the rusty vent. Julie quickly took the Little Sister out of the basket, waking her up. While she was yawning, Julie put a hand to her head. The Little Sister didn't seem to notice being Cured. Julie hurriedly put her in the vent before whatever had been roaring found them. Julie sucked the ADAM glob up before the splicer could get the idea to try and steal it. "Okay, now what?"

"You are looking for a door."

"Yeah, preferably not the one I came in."

The splicer nodded and started walking again. Julie sighed and followed him.


	71. Callback

_That's eight Little Sisters you've saved._

Julie shrugged. 'I'd lost count,' she admitted.

 _"_ _That's easier to do than you'd think."_

Julie felt some shock from Eleanor. _What was that?_

'Just a weird hallucination. I've been having them lately. Some Irish lady. I…I think I heard her singing,' realized Julie

 _That…It was like she was responding to me._

'Yeah, dunno how she does that,' thought Julie.

 _That doesn't concern you?_

'Not like I can do anything about it.' Julie saw something out of the corner of her eye and swung. A red spray covered her porthole as something thumped on the ground. 'Shit!' She quickly wiped off the blood and got into a fighting position. The splicer was just standing there. On the ground in front of Julie was…It was some sort of big cat. It looked like a leopard, but it had a lion's mane. "What the heck is that?"

"A leonpard," said the splicer.

Julie nudged it with her foot. "Is this what was roaring before?"

"No."

"Well, let's keep moving then." The splicer started walking again. 'Have you ever heard of a leonpard?'

 _I've read about this. Most big cats can interbreed with each other. They just don't usually get the opportunity to in the wild._

'Leopard and lion?'

 _I guess. I've never actually seen either for myself…_

'When we get to the mainland you can go to a zoo. I can't go with you, but some of our sisters can.'

 _That would be wonderful._

Julie ducked under a low hanging branch. 'I can't remember the last time I went to a zoo. Maybe I'll go to one when I get back to Teufort.' Julie groaned. 'But I'll probably be in big trouble with my boss…'

 _They'll have to forgive you eventually._

'You don't know her.' The bases still had damage from the Soldier-Demoman war. Julie did her best to change the subject. 'I can't wait to get out of here. There are no vending machines. Not even anything to salvage.'

 _Noah's Zoo is the only location in Rapture like that. Wherever you go next you'll be able to resupply. Speaking of which, are there any gene tonics or plasmids you're hoping to acquire?_

'Uh…I'm mostly just picking up whatever gene tonics I happen across. I wouldn't mind Extra Nutrition 1 and 3. I wanna upgrade Electrobolt and Insect Swarm.'

 _Well, in that case, I need to take care of something._

Julie chuckled. 'Planning something?'

 _You'll see._

Julie was going to find another teddy bear when she found a Gatherer's Garden, wasn't she? Julie wondered where Eleanor was finding these things.

Julie and the splicer kept walking for a few more minutes before he stopped again. "The door is here." The splicer started cutting at the vegetation. Julie watched him for a few moments before he tensed. Julie spun around as she heard him teleport away. Something was growling from the trees. Julie grabbed her shotgun as she looked for the source. She thought she could make out a pair of eyes.

Something huge jumped at her. Julie fired as she dodged to the side and the animal landed where she'd just been. "Holy shit!"

That was the biggest tiger Julie had ever seen! It had to be the size of a car! Julie fired again as she dodged a paw swipe. The tiger shook its head but didn't seem particularly bothered. Julie lashed out with fire and hit it in the face. It yowled and jerked away, pawing at its face. "Yeah, that's what you get!" She shot another bout of fire at it. It snarled and backed away. She lit trails of fire between them. The tiger hissed. Julie hit it with an Electrobolt and shot it in the head with the revolver. It staggered a bit before collapsing.

Julie blinked. "I just killed a giant tiger…I could be in a Saxton Hale comic!" She chuckled and turned around to burn the vines a bit before cutting at them. Thankfully, there was an intact door behind them. Julie tapped it a couple of times. It opened with a loud creaking sound that suggested it hadn't been opened for a while. Julie turned around towards the trees and noticed the tiger's body had been moved. "You better keep your end of the deal! You hear me Sheti?!"

Julie didn't get a response. She hadn't expected one.


	72. Back To School

"Holy crap…" Julie had expected to end up somewhere random when she went through the tunnel, but she was in Ryan University, exactly where she wanted to be.

How'd that happen?

She looked at a nearby store for food. It had probably already been scavenged, but she decided to check it just in case.

Nope, nothing. Not even money in the register.

She walked over to the next store, which was a bookstore. The books were still there. A body was sitting in a chair. No money in the register.

Julie walked back out and glanced at the next few stores. They were things like clothing, some cheap restaurants, office supplies, a gun store…Julie walked into the last one to see if the place hadn't been completely scavenged.

No guns. Julie started going through the drawers but still didn't see any guns. There was a box of bullets that she grabbed. That was pretty much it. Julie stood and saw blue out of the corner of her eye. She turned.

It was another hallucination. A familiar woman was patching up a hole in the wall. Julie frowned and moved closer, but she couldn't see inside the hole that was being patched. The woman didn't react to Julie. She just kept patching the wall until she disappeared.

Julie studied the wall for a moment before grabbing a chair and slamming it into the wall. The chair gave out before the wall, but she had another chair to use. When that one gave out, there was enough of a hole that Julie started kicking through it. Once the hole was bigger she started tearing away plaster with her hands. She pulled out the box that had been hidden in the wall.

Inside was a hacking gun, along with every kind of available ammo. "Sweet!" This was really useful. If she needed to she could hack a camera or turret instead of breaking it or even lay down a mini-turret.

Except…

She wasn't sure she could actually hack anything if she didn't understand computer code, and she'd been doing just fine so far…

But maybe someone else could use it…

Julie started trying to contact Eleanor. She kept trying as she walked to the office supply store and wrote a note.

 _Julie?_

'Hey, could you do me a favor?'

 _If it's within my power._

'Could you deliver something to my team?'

 _As long as it will fit in the vents._

Julie stuffed the note in the box and considered it. 'Yeah, I think so.'

 _I will have a Little Sister waiting at the next Gatherer's Garden you find._

Julie chuckled. 'Got it. Thanks a lot. I want the guys to get out of here alive.'

"Attention everyone!" said a chipper woman over the intercom. "We have an unexpected visitor!"

'Looks like I've been found out,' groused Julie as she Scouted outside to make sure nothing was waiting out there for her.

"Dr. Lamb said she was causing trouble for the other areas of Rapture, so we need to find her and kill her, okay?"

That woman was way too cheerful. Julie electrocuted and shot a group of splicers that tried to sneak up on her. Now, where would this woman be? Julie didn't know enough about her to try and predict where she might be comfortable. She'd just have to look for clues along with everything else. But first…Julie pulled out her radio. "Hey, Ma."

"Julie."

"Do you know who's in charge of Ryan University?"

"I…do not. I think I heard her name at some point, but I can't remember what it was. I don't think she was important before your father came through Rapture."

"Okay, thought I'd ask just in case." She saw the familiar shape of a Gatherer's Garden. Standing in front of it was a Little Sister Julie didn't recognize. "Gotta go. Talk to ya later." Julie walked over to the Little Sister. "Hi there."

The Little Sister waved. "Hi!"

Julie held the box out. "I have a package for you to deliver."

The Little Sister took the box. "Okay!" She ran to a nearby vent and carefully climbed in with the box.

Julie nodded and set up several cyclone traps before turning to the teddy bear in front of the Gatherer's Garden. "Okay, let's see what we got." Inside was 65 dollars, 120 units, and Extra Nutrition 3. "Wow, she sure managed to get that on short notice…" Julie injected it and debated whether to get another tonic slot to actually use it. Then she remembered that she had a spare gene tonic slot from when she tried to use Metabolic EVE. Wouldn't have to worry about that.

Electro Bolt 3 cost 225 units, and Insect Swarm 3 cost 130 units. She had 245 units of ADAM. She bought the Electrobolt and injected it. Once the wooziness passed she turned it on to see what happened. Lightning danced over her arms. She quickly turned it off. One bolt had hit her revolver. She examined it for a moment, determined that it was fine if a little warm, and put it back. She rubbed her hands. The electricity had left her arms tingling uncomfortable, like a static shock that had covered both her arms. Had she hurt them? She was pretty sure she'd already managed to burn them…She'd have to be careful until she got the hang of Incinerate and Electrobolt.

Julie stood for a moment as she waited for the arrow to appear. It failed to show up. She slumped. Well, there went that lead. She straightened. She wasn't going to rely on it. She could find her way around without it just find. She just had to do a little more work.

She'd start by looking for clues to the identity of the woman in charge of the area.


	73. It was the fastest way

Julie had just headshotted a splicer when her radio went off.

It was Spy. "Scout, where are you?"

"I'm in the local college." She let out some bees and watched as they flew off. "Why?"

"We found a package with a strange machine in it. Along with a note in your handwriting," explained Spy.

Julie smiled as she realized they'd gotten the hacking machine. "Oh, I asked someone to take it to the Medical Pavilion for me."

"I thought you said this place was completely filled with lunatics," said Spy in an accusatory tone.

"No, I said almost everyone was a lunatic," clarified Julie as she followed the bees. "There's still a few sane people…" Mostly Little Sisters. "Besides Lamb. She's not gonna help us."

"And how did you convince them to make such a dangerous delivery?" pressed Spy.

"I said they could come with us when we left." Okay, she didn't actually say that, but that had been the plan. "Only other way out is dying anyway."

"Why couldn't you make the delivery?"

Julie winced as she glanced towards where some of her bees were stinging a man while a woman was looking around in confusion. "I was in the middle of something." She shot the woman with an electro bolt. "Besides, Lamb is watching me." She shot the woman with a blast of fire.

Spy was silent. "Very well. We will contact you should any other situations come up." He didn't believe her. Julie sighed as she shot the two splicers. Of course Spy didn't believe her. Why would he when she was hiding so much?


	74. Is the familiarity comforting?

Julie had been wandering around when she felt something rip into her side. She spun around to return fire…only to see no one there. She felt confusion before another bullet hit her…from the direction she had been facing.

Instinct had her lashing out with Incinerate. An invisible figure screamed and writhed in pain. Julie immediately shot it up with her machine gun. The man turned visible as he died. Julie stared. Right, there was a plasmid that let you turn invisible and keep moving. Like a Spy.

Julie swallowed nervously and injected a first aid hypo. She'd just have to use anti-Spy methods. That mostly consisted of Spy checking with fire like Pyro. She could do that. After thinking for a moment, she wondered if bees might be able to notice them too. She let out some bees and watched them fly off.

She should probably let the guys know about this, but she was worried if she talked to them too often that someone might be able to hack the frequency, and it wasn't like the invisible splicers were an immediate threat to them. At least she didn't think there were any in the previous areas. She'd just try to remember to tell them the next time they had to talk…

And maybe leave an audiovox in case she did forget.


	75. Or does it terrify you?

"…And some of 'em can turn invisible. Fuckin' assholes." Julie placed the audiovox where it could be seen. She didn't think RED would miss it.

Julie straightened and started walking, letting out bees at a regular interval. True to her suspicions, they went after invisible splicers along with visible ones. That was such a relief.

So now Julie was looking around for anywhere that looked like it might be a good hideout.

"Everyone, I can see our visitor is still alive. You need to try harder."

What sort of order was that? She needed to be more specific.

"Whoever kills her gets one of my homemade pies!"

…The fuck? Was this woman serious? What was she, a commander or a mother?

Several splicers ran out, prompting Julie to shoot out an electro bolt and then shoot them. Then shoot out some fire to check for the invisible splicers.

Julie was really going to need to step things up.


	76. Follow

"Are you sure you don't know anything?" asked Julie. She was getting frustrated at her lack of progress and had decided to try calling her mother again.

"I didn't exactly get out a lot. The only people I am familiar with are the ones I worked with or very well-known individuals. I know nothing about anyone from Ryan University outside of a few professors," said her Ma. "None of them would offer pie as a reward for a task."

Julie groaned. "I just…want to get rid of her before RED gets here. The other two splicers put in charge of areas were dangerous! I mean, the guys aren't slouches. They haven't had any problems yet, but I'm still scared a stronger splicer will give them problems."

"Given what you've written about them, I would be more worried about them giving into the temptation to splice," said her Ma.

"I told them what would happen if they did," replied Julie. "Most of them have enough common sense to avoid it…and keep the others from trying it." She did a Spy check.

"Doesn't one of them collect decapitated heads?" pointed out Ma.

"I don't think Soldier is gonna care."

Someone cleared their throat. Julie tensed and turned. It was a hallucination of the lady from before just standing there. As soon as Julie looked, the hallucination started walking. After a moment of debate, Julie decided to try following her. "Hey, uh, I've been having some odd hallucinations…"

"What sort of hallucinations?"

"It's always the same woman. It looks like an ADAM memory, but it's like she's trying to interact with me."

"Have you been responding?"

"Hell no."

The hallucination in front of her made an annoyed sound.

"But sometimes she says things that turn out to be true. It's freaky."

"That's very worrying. Normally, I'd say it's ADAM sickness, but you're immune to that."

Julie nodded, slightly relieved to have that fact reconfirmed. "So what else could it be?"

"I don't know! Perhaps you have been under a great amount of stress."

"Of course I have!" said Julie.

"I mean greater than we were expecting," corrected her Ma.

Julie shot a couple of splicers and did another Spy check. "Well, I'm seeing her now. She's short. Has pretty curly hair. Can't tell what color."

"What is she doing?"

"Walking." The hallucination stopped. "She stopped." She opened a nearby circuit box and slipped something in. "She hid something in a circuit box." The hallucination disappeared. "She's gone. Let's see if there's anything in there."

Julie was not that surprised to find an audiovox in her circuit box. "Okay, so there was an audiovox in there. Any explanation?"

"Well…I do recall a man with a natural telepathic ability. Perhaps this woman had a natural precognitive ability?"

"Like, she knows where I'm gonna be and that I'll be seeing her…so she's acting like I'm there then?" Julie's head hurt.

"I guess. It would depend on if she is truly precognitive."

"This is too confusing to think about right now," complained Julie. "I'll worry later. Maybe see a psychologist if it gets bad."

"I suppose that will have to do."

"Right, bye." Julie hung up and messed with the audiovox.

"All splicers are tragic monsters," said the Irish Lady in a sadder than sad tone. It was so sad that Julie hit the stop button automatically. Something horrible had happened. Something horrible was going to happen. Julie took a calming breath and hit the play button again. "But Barbara Johnson is especially so. She was tricked and lost her daughter. Now she sees everyone as her daughter's kidnappers. And yet she sees every Little Sister as her lost daughter."

Julie frowned at the information and the Irish woman's tone. Was Barbara Johnson the woman in charge of the University? If she was, then maybe if Julie found a Little Sister, she could draw Johnson out. If not…Well, she would at least have found another Little Sister.

Julie should start looking, but something about the Irish Lady's voice was still bothering her. She just sounded so…so…

Broken.


	77. I would have gone for the other upgrade

How could it be so difficult to find a Little Sister? Julie still hadn't seen so much as a Big Daddy.

Maybe they were invisible too.

That thought made Julie pause before she decided that even if they were invisible she'd still be able to hear and smell them. They weren't exactly subtle.

Right now Julie was just wandering around and killing splicers while keeping an eye out for Little Sisters or clues to where Maybe Johnson was holing herself up. Julie picked up a tin of meat. A quick study revealed it had been opened and then messily resealed. Julie unceremoniously dropped it.

It was happening again. Julie knew she was in a dangerous situation and needed to stay alert, but it had become so monotonously boring that her mind was starting to wander. Maybe if Julie had someone to talk to it wouldn't be so bad…

 _"_ _You could actually have a conversation with me."_

Nope. No. Not gonna happen. Julie darted away from the hallucination and into a nearby shop.

It turned out to be another gun store. It didn't have any guns, but there was a Power to the People station in one corner. Julie looked around to see if it was a trap but didn't see anything too obvious. She did see a few bullets lying around that she pocketed on her way over.

Now, she had to choose which weapon to upgrade: Machine gun or revolver? She knew that the available option for the machine gun was something that would increase the velocity of the bullets. She stuck the revolver in to see what the options were. It could either get an upgrade that would increase the clip size or an upgrade that would increase the velocity like what the machine would have gotten.

Because Julie was familiar with the dangers of reloading weapons in the middle of a fight she decided to go with the larger clip size. The revolver disappeared into the station as a loud grinding sound came from it. Julie turned towards the door to watch for anyone attracted by the noise, but no one had shown up by the time the station spat her revolver back out. Julie turned to grab her revolver, blinked, and let out a snort of laughter.

Turns out the clip size was increased by attaching a can to the chambers. She had no idea how the extra bullets in there got in the chambers, but whatever worked.

Julie took a moment to fit the gun in her pack and continued on.


	78. They haven't used their brains in a long

Julie had been trying out the revolver and was enjoying it. It had the same recoil, and aiming was the same. It might be a bit heavier, but Julie didn't think there were any downsides to the weird attachment.

However, she'd noticed that headshots weren't working as well as they should have. She'd learned to aim for heads, and knew that they were generally one hit kills. Heck, thanks to respawn she'd experienced how quickly they ended your life. It was part of the reason she'd decided to wear the Big Sister suit. Yet, she'd hit a splicer right in the head, and it would continue to try and kill her. Another headshot usually was enough to kill them, but it was creepy. How the hell were they surviving with part of their brain blown out of their skull? She guessed ADAM could replace brain cells, but wouldn't they need an injection right away? Maybe they didn't need that particular part of their brain to live?

It hurt Julie's head to think about it.

And then she heard the familiar groaning of a Big Daddy. "Finally!" Julie walked towards the moaning, glad for the distraction from her previous thoughts. Julie turned a corner, ran down an alley, and there they were.

Along with the Bouncer and Little Sister there were several splicers hanging around for whatever reason. They weren't trying attacking the Big Daddy, just…watching. Julie started with bees to distract the splicers. While the splicers were panicking, Julie gave herself a quick boost of EVE and she blasted the Big Daddy with a continuous electro bolt. She figured it would work like the electro gel in the chemical thrower. It was draining her EVE pretty rapidly though. She didn't think it would work for the entire fight. She stopped and took advantage of the residual spasms to shoot him a bit and set him on fire. She dodged a charge from the Bouncer and hit it with an electro bolt again.

"What do you think you're doing you hooligan?!" shouted Maybe Johnson. "You leave my daughter alone!"

Okay, Julie was updating her to 'Probably Johnson'. "Leave Mr. B alone!" shouted the Little Sister.

Great, why couldn't this Little Sister like her like most of the other Little Sisters? Julie jumped away and started firing the machine gun. The Bouncer roared and charged at Julie as she dodged. Julie tossed out more bees to distract the splicers still hanging around. The Bouncer charged again, and Julie flipped over him, landing on his back. The Bouncer tried to grab her but was unable to because of its proportions.

Julie grinned and started pulling tubes and anything else that looked important. She had no idea how much damage that would do or how quickly it would add up, but it wasn't like there was anyone around here that could fix him.

"Get off our dog!" shouted 'Probably Johnson'. "He's a purebred!"

Wow, this woman was crazy even by splicer standards. Julie disconnected the last tube and jumped off the Bouncer's back. The Bouncer made a wheezy growl as it slowly turned to face her. The Little Sister ran forward and jammed her syringe into the Big Daddy.

It didn't help. The Bouncer managed to take one step before collapsing. Julie darted forward, scooped up the Little Sister, and ran out of there. The Little Sister let out a squeak and stabbed Julie with her syringe. Julie yanked it out and threw it away before it could extract anything.

"My daughter! Somebody stop her!"

Julie grit her teeth as she did her best to dodge attacks from splicers, deal with the flailing from the Little Sister, and find a vent. Why wasn't this kid behaving like a regular Little Sister?

Julie finally found a vent and Cured the Little Sister and held her to the vent. "Get out of here!" The Little Sister glared at her with crossed arms. "Yeesh, can you wait to have an attitude with me until after we get out of here?"

The Little Sister huffed but climbed into the vent. Julie sighed. She had a feeling that girl was going to give her problems when they left Rapture.

"You monster! I ought to come down there and kill you myself!"

Oh, please do.


	79. Pain

Julie's arms hurt. A lot. She injected herself with a first aid kit. Her arms still hurt…and itched for some reason. Julie scratched at them as best she could. Burn scars itched something awful while they were healing. She hadn't bothered to be careful when she'd first gotten Incinerate since she'd been frostbitten. Heck maybe the frostbite was adding to the pain. She would be surprised if the electro bolts and bees weren't causing damage too. Julie flexed her arms. She could move them just fine, but they hurt so much…

"Fuck…" Should Julie call her Ma or Medic about this? She thought for a moment and decided that she'd rather not have RED find out about her possible injuries and contacted her mother instead. "Hey, Ma, do you have any burn cream?"

"Ah. No. That slipped my mind. I was more concerned with infections and ADAM sickness," said Ma.

Julie's arms kept hurting and itching. "It's okay, I used a first aid hypo. My arms just itch real bad."

"Wait. Were you wearing your suit when you used the first aid?"

"Yes."

"Julie! Burns can cause your skin to fuse with your clothes!"

"Oh…" Julie glanced at her arms. "…That is gonna be painful."

"What is?"

"When I take off the suit."

"No. Get your Medic teammate to remove it for you," demanded Ma.

Julie winced. She still didn't want RED to see her like this, even if she Cured herself beforehand. "I guess…I'll talk to them when we meet up."

"Try not to put it off for too long. I don't want to see you killed because you wanted to keep secrets."

Julie sighed. "Right, right, I just need to make sure the way to the store is clear."

"Julie…" Ma said in a way that usually indicated a lecture was coming.

"It's quicker that way!" insisted Julie. "…And I'm not sure if the bees will go after RED or not."

Ma sighed over the phone. "All right. If that is how you feel, then I suppose I won't be able to talk you out of it."

Julie nodded. "Great…I'm gonna see if I can reach RED and make sure they're all right." She hung up and quickly switched frequencies. "Hey guys, how're you doing?"

"We are fine," said Spy. "Have you ever heard of a Dr. Steinman?"

"Yeesh. That guy? Yeah, Dad killed him when he came through. Sounded like a real lunatic." Julie paused. "How'd you find out about him?"

"We found what appears to be one of his storage rooms."

Julie winced. "Oh…Yeah. He was pretty fucking crazy even before he started taking ADAM. Dad said he had something against symmetry. If I were you I'd just get out of there and try to forget whatever you saw." Julie could hear some agreements and one disagreement.

No prize for guessing who that was.

"I guess that means you guys are still in the Medical Pavilion," commented Julie. "Have you seen anymore Little Sisters? Or Big Daddies?"

"I'm assuming the man in the diving suit was a Big Daddy," Spy said in a questioning sort of tone.

"Yep."

"Then no, we haven't seen anymore," said Spy

"Huh."

"That's unusual?"

"Well, yeah, but we've been rescuing Little Sisters, and…"

"And?"

She could not tell them she was killing Big Daddies on her own. "Well, Big Daddies need ADAM from Little Sisters' blood to survive so if there's no Little Sisters they're not gonna stick around."

"Oh! How does that work?" asked Medic.

"Beats me." Julie paused as she thought she heard singing. "I'm gonna have to call you guys back. Stay safe."


	80. Keep killing

It was odd that Julie had found another Little Sister so quickly. She wondered if Eleanor had decided to push them towards her a bit after all. It would explain a few things. Julie was progressing a lot faster than she'd expected.

Julie produced several bees to distract any nearby splicers. She could hear screams and was pretty sure she saw bees zeroing in on an invisible splicer. The Little Sister was swatting at the bees and attempting to hide behind the Bouncer she was with. Julie winced at that and made a note to make sure there were no bees when she used the Cure.

"What are you doing?! She has allergies!"

Julie ignored Probably Johnson. She thought about how to actually take on the Bouncer. The fights with Big Daddies were starting to become surprisingly straightforward. Electrocute, set on fire, use armor piercing bullets, rinse and repeat, adjust as needed. Things could still go wrong, but not as wrong as when she'd first returned to Rapture.

Julie hit the Bouncer with an electro bolt and fire combo and started firing her machine gun. The Bouncer recovered and charged at her. Julie deftly flipped over him, grabbing a tube and pulling it loose. She shot him with another Electrobolt as she landed.

"I'll call the police!" threatened Probably Johnson.

Did Rapture even have a police force?

Julie hurled part of a broken brick wall at the Bouncer, who countered by slamming his spinning drill into the wall and breaking it apart, but it was enough of a distraction for Julie to aim her shotgun and start firing. The Big Daddy jerked just long enough for the phosphorus buck to ignite and explode six times. Julie tucked her shotgun back into her pack as she dodged a punch from the Bouncer.

The explosions had caused the suit to develop holes. Julie started to produce more bees in the hopes some of them would find their way into the suit. She pushed herself away from the Bouncer and winced. Her head was starting to hurt. She was going to need to give herself an EVE injection soon, but could she afford to do so in the middle of this fight? Probably not.

Julie looked for a hole, noted one in his left side, and propelled herself towards him fast enough for her harpoon to slip through the hole all the way up to her fist. She wasn't sure if the heart was hit with the Bouncers' odd proportions, but ripping out the harpoon did enough damage that the Bouncer collapsed. Julie hurried over to the confused Little Sister and picked her up. "My baby!" Julie started running. "That's it! I'm coming down there myself!"

Julie grinned. Looks like her plan had worked.

"What's going on?" asked the Little Sister.

"I'm rescuing you."

"From what?" the Little Sister asked incredulously.

"Ending up like me."

"Huh?"

Julie didn't go into the details and just ran to the nearest vent while avoiding splicers. She shot the ones near the vent to be sure they wouldn't be interrupted and then put her hand on the Little Sister's head. The Little Sister let out a gasp as the Cure took effect and light flared from her body. She blinked up at Julie, smiled, and started climbing into the vent as Julie sucked the ADAM up.

A Big Sister screeched in the distance.

"Crap!" Julie hurriedly gave herself an EVE injection and started to reload her weapons as quickly as she could. She barely managed to finish reloading her shotgun when the Big Sister jumped at her. Julie reflexively fired at her.

Fortunately, she'd loaded it with Solid Slug, which sent the Big Sister wildly off course. Julie quickly set her on fire. Before she could use electro bolt, something hit her helmet with a clang and sent her stumbling, desperately letting out fire to try and keep the Big Sister and whatever attacked her away. Something bit her side and she reflexively pushed away physically and mentally as her vision came back into focus.

The Big Sister was still there, and the fire had gone out. Next to her was a middle aged female splicer in a blue housedress and apron holding a frying pan the same way Julie usually held her baseball bat.

She missed that bat so, **_so_** much.

The splicer fired an electro bolt that Julie managed to dodge, only to get stabbed by the Big Sister. With the harpoon. Julie couldn't just yank that out, and she couldn't let the Big Sister yank it out. Julie did the only thing she could think of and wrapped one arm around the harpoon arm while grabbing the other arm so she wouldn't get stabbed again. The Big Sister growled and tried to wrench free, but they were about equal in terms of strength, and the Big Sister didn't know how to actually break out of a hold.

"Let go of her this instant you hoodlum!"

Julie groaned. The splicer was Probably Johnson. Figures. She started letting bees crawl out of the openings on her gloves while she did her best to keep the Big Sister between her and Probably Johnson.

The Big Sister did a head butt. The head butt made a sound like a bell and sent her head spinning again. Julie did her best to force her vision into focus and saw the Big Sister seemed to have been thrown for a loop too. Probably Johnson was screaming about bees in the background. Julie desperately tried to think about how to finish this while keeping the Big Sister from getting away from her. It didn't really seem like a good idea to set her on fire or electrocute her while they were stuck together.

Fortunately, you did't actually need hand gestures to use plasmids. Julie picked up a heavy piece of rubble and threw it at the Big Sister. The Big Sister grunted and kicked at Julie. Julie kicked back and took advantage of her temporary loss of balance to reposition her opponent to continue acting as a shield. Probably Johnson swatted away more bees and tried to get around so she would have a clear shot at Julie. Julie threw rubble at her with enough force to knock her off her feet. Then she pulled the rubble towards the back of the Big Sister's legs, taking them out from under her. Then she dropped a huge piece of wall on the Big Sister's arm.

The arm audibly snapped. The Big Sister screeched. Julie undid the latches on the harpoon and yanked the Big Sister's arm out with a relieved sigh. The harpoon was still stuck in place, but at least she could gain some distance now.

The Big Sister scrambled back. Probably Johnson ran over. "Don't worry, honey. I have some medicine." She pulled out a first aid hypo. Julie immediately started firing with her pistol. One bullet hit Probably Johnson, causing her to drop the syringe. The Big Sister grabbed the syringe and injected it. For some reason it occurred to Julie that the bones wouldn't heal correctly like that.

Not sure where that came from.

Probably Johnson pulled out another first aid hypo, and Julie immediately shot her in the head. The Big Sister shrieked and shot at Julie like a bullet. Julie didn't even have time to brace for impact and was sent flying back. She landed on her back with the Big Sister on top of her punching and stabbing. Julie tried to pistol whip the Big Sister, but that didn't work with the helmet.

The Big Sister's needle snapped off in Julie's shoulder. "Fuck!" She kneed the Big Sister in the gut and stabbed her in the stomach. That was where the slug was so it would kill her quickly, right? Except it was taking a while to get through, but the fists weren't really hurting that much. She finally got through the suit and kept stabbing and stabbing but the Big Sister would not stop punching.

And then the Big Sister just collapsed on her.

Julie lay still for several moments before pushing the Big Sister off of her. She pulled the needle out of her right shoulder and studied it. She groaned as she realized part of the needle had broken off and was still in her shoulder. She was definitely going to need to see Medic for that. She turned her attention to the harpoon. The injury was starting to hurt, and she was sure it was going to be just as bad as the rebar. She'd have to finish pushing it through instead of yanking it out, but first she had to figure out how to detach it from the glove.

"Do you know why Barbara Johnson is in charge of this sham of a school?" Lamb suddenly asked. "Do you know why she is so loyal to me? Why I have faith that she would never betray me?"

Julie ignored her as she messily tried to disassemble the harpoon device with a combination of physical force and telekinesis.

"When Rapture was falling into chaos, Mrs. Johnson's daughter was stolen from her, snatched away and turned into a Little Sister."

That wasn't news to her.

"Unlike you, Ryan's son did not take her to the surface after he toppled his father's regime."

Julie's stomach dropped to her feet. Her heart sped up. She felt like she was going to throw up and pass out.

"I reunited the two and allowed them to stay together. Even after her daughter went through the mental psychosis that turned her into a Big Sister she recognized Johnson as her mother."

Julie stared at the body of the Big Sister that was lying next to her.

"Did you know her? Were you friends once? Does it cause you any pain to kill those you once saw as your sisters?"

Julie inhaled deeply. Her vision was blurry. She blinked rapidly to clear away tears that were starting to form. She pushed down all the pain and anger and frustration and horror and sadness and she just felt numb. She used Scout.

She still ached where she'd been stabbed. She ran around the perimeter and set up cyclone traps to deter splicers from getting near. Then she walked back over to her body. It was eerie staring at her body at the best of times, but now with part of a harpoon sticking out she looked dead. Julie reached out, telekinetically grabbed the contraption, and wrenched it apart. She studied the harpoon. The shaft was smooth except for a couple of holes. It should be okay to push it through.

She returned to her body and pulled out her last first aid hypo before pulling herself into a sitting position. She pushed the harpoon end until it disappeared into her body. Then she grabbed the other end and pulled it out. Blood gushed out in the few seconds it took to inject the first aid hypo. She rotated her right shoulder and winced as a jolt of pain radiated through it. Definitely something still in there.

Julie stood and glanced between the Big Sister and Johnson. She grabbed the Big Sister, dragged her over to Johnson, and took off the helmet. Johnson's face had been distorted by ADAM and the headshot, but it did look the two could be related. Julie felt an odd surge of guilt. "I'm sorry." It didn't fix anything. They were still dead.

Julie went through Johnson's pockets and found several first aid hypos along with the key that would let her out of the University.

She walked away to find the control panel.


	81. And all that's left is numbness

The arrow was back so Julie had a much easier time finding the console the key went to. It was in the engineering building, which had controls for all sorts of stuff around the university. Julie decided she didn't care and just undid the genetic lock.

Julie walked to the entrance to Fort Frolic, walked through the tunnel, walked through the door, walked into a fancy hallway lined with paintings. She walked on without seeing them. She only stopped walking when an electric jolt ripped through her body.

Julie jumped back, looking around in shock before realizing she was still the only one there. She let out some bees, but they didn't attack anything.

"You really should watch where you're going," an amused voice said over the intercom.

Julie looked in front of her and realized there were trap bolts crisscrossing the hallway. She started using her telekinesis to disarm the trap.

"Hm…You're not like the other Big Sisters, but I can't quite place what it is…"

Julie frowned. He didn't know who she was? Did that mean he didn't work for Lamb?

"Ah ha! You're shorter than a normal Big Sister. Still taller than most women. Unless you're a man. That bulky suit makes it impossible to tell," said the man, sounding annoyed near the end.

She guessed he had a point now that she thought about it. Heck, some of the Big Daddies could actually be moms for all she knew.

"But where are my manners? I am Sander Cohen."

Julie jerked back.

"Ah, I see you've heard of me."

Yes, she had. She knew exactly what he was capable of.

"Now, who are you? You certainly look like one of Lamb's girls."

Julie noted there was a threatening overtone. "I'm not!" she shouted, hoping there was a microphone nearby or something.

"Hm, no, I suppose not. Hers never talk. Rather dull."

Julie let out a sigh of relief.

"And what brings you to my precious Fort?"

"I'm trying to get to Fontaine's Department Store."

"Are you now?" asked Cohen, sounding far too interested. "Well, it has certainly been a long time since anyone actually sought to go there. The last ones were a handsome detective and a little bitch."

Julie raised an eyebrow. He'd snarled that last bit. She decided not to bring it up.

"But why should I let you through?" asked Cohen. "Supplies are scarce nowadays. Why should I waste any of it on you?"

Julie shrugged. It wasn't like he'd care about her reasons, and she wasn't sure what she could say to convince him.

"Not very talkative are you? Well, I know what you won't be doing: Singing."

Julie nodded. Her singing was awful. It was the accent.

"But what do you look like under that suit? Take off that helmet and let me see."

Julie looked around nervously for any splicers with guns, grabbed her revolver just in case, and took her helmet off.

"…I still can't tell if you're a man or a woman."

Julie opened her mouth.

"Although there _is_ a certain appeal to that."

Julie shut her mouth.

"I've decided what to do with you!"

"And then you'll give me passage to Fontaine's?" pressed Julie.

"Yes, yes, just get moving."

Julie slipped her helmet back on and continued down the hallway.


	82. Nostalgia

As Julie walked out of the hallway and into Fort Frolic proper, she was hit with a wave of nostalgia. She'd been trained in the facility in Fort Frolic and did most of her gathering here after…

She shook her head and checked her radio. Nothing but static. She'd expected that, but had been hoping Cohen had stopped the practice. Looked like she and RED were on their own.

"Now, where shall I have you pose first?"

Posing didn't sound so bad. Better than what Dad ended up having to do anyway. She waited for instructions, but Cohen stayed silent. She figured that meant it was all right for her to wander around…

…Except she didn't really have anywhere she wanted to go. She guessed she could keep an eye out for Little Sisters if they still came to Fort Frolic. She rotated her shoulder. It still hurt, though not as much as right after the last Big Sister fight. If she wasn't careful, it would get worse. She would probably need to avoid hand to hand combat as much as possible…and physical activity in general. She couldn't just rely on plasmids though…

"Stop right there!"

Julie froze.

"Move back a bit…Yes…Now, move over to the window. Place your hands on it, take off your helmet, and lean your head against the glass."

Julie didn't want to put herself in such a vulnerable position but figured she didn't have a choice. She pulled off her helmet, placed her hands on the glass, pressed her forehead against the glass, closed her eyes, and used Scout.

Julie looked around the area surrounding her body. So far this part of Fort Frolic was oddly deserted besides the 'statues' Cohen liked to leave around. She hated them. She could never tell if they were actual statues, dead bodies covered in plaster, or living splicers waiting to pounce on her. She was ready to hit them with an Electrobolt if she had to.

"And done!"

Julie quickly returned to her body and straightened up. She made a face as she rotated her injured shoulder. Wow, this was gonna cause her all sorts of problems if she couldn't figure out how to avoid actually using-

Julie froze in the middle of putting her helmet on as a crazy idea occurred to her.


	83. Ghosts can be alive

Julie made a face at the Fort Frolic Little Wonders Training Facility. She'd gone looking for the nearest Gatherer's Garden. She'd completely forgotten that there was always one in front of the training facilities. Well, she could just ignore it while she took care of her business. She turned to the Gatherer's Garden and brought up the items for sale. Scout 2 cost…60 units. She could have bought that before-

Julie squashed the thought and inserted the ADAM required.

"So, what's your poison?" queried Cohen.

Julie didn't answer as she took out Scout 2.

"Ah…A taste for power is it?"

Julie just set up some cyclone traps and injected Scout 2. She felt lightheaded for a moment, but it quickly passed. She turned back to the Gatherer's Garden and started looked for the other things she was interested in. She'd like the third level of Insect Swarm. She'd also like to get the first Extra Nutrition gene tonic. She technically could afford both of them, but she'd need to buy an extra gene tonic slot for Extra Nutrition.

Well, she wanted to use more plasmids, so she would need Metabolic Eve. She chose two gene tonic slots.

"Hm? Well, aren't you a little glutton."

Julie injected the gene tonic slots and then ordered and injected Extra Nutrition. Thankfully, she still had 70 units left, so she would probably still be able to buy Insect Swarm 3 at a later time. After she finished the injections she rotated her wrist a bit and looked around.

That statue hadn't been there before.

The cyclone traps were still there to keep her safe. Might as well use this as a test run. She took a step back and Scouted.

Julie walked over to the splicer and swiped at her head. The harpoon went through her head. Julie groaned. She'd been hoping she could become solid with the Scout upgrade. Julie thought for a moment. She could use any plasmid in her…spirit…astral…mental form, even if her control was a bit shaky. Maybe if she could sort of wrap Telekinesis around her mental form…

Julie took a moment to wrap it around the harpoon and tried to clamp it down as tightly as possible. She really hoped this worked. She slammed the harpoon into the splicers face. The splicer stumbled back. The harpoon hadn't gone through her head. It had been more like a punch. Julie swore and quickly put a cyclone trap under the splicer before she could recover. Then set her on fire and electrocuted her on the way down. The splicer didn't get back up. Julie went back to her body and stepped over the traps to look for a Gene Bank.

"How _did_ you do that?"

Julie didn't answer as she quickly found the Gene Bank and let it poke her finger. She let it poke her again to activate Metabolic EVE.

Now, she would just have to hope her crazy idea worked.


	84. Scars are a badge of survival

"Get up on that sculpture," Cohen suddenly demanded.

Julie squinted at the large sculpture. It was three (previously four) women holding up…bars? She got a sudden flashback that revealed it was a sphere. She guessed it was supposed to be Earth or something like that. She double jumped up to one of the more horizontal bars.

"Not that one. The one above it."

Julie jumped up.

"Now sit in the center, cross your legs, keep your hands to the side, take off the helmet, at least try to look demure."

Julie had no idea what demure meant so she just tried to relax, not exactly the easiest thing to do in the middle of Rapture. She Scouted out to see if anyone was trying to sneak up on her. It took her a moment to realize she'd stepped off the sculpture and was floating on air.

She was flying!

…And then Julie remembered that her body was still a few feet away.

Julie stared at the floor through her feet. Now, that she thought about it, it sort of made sense that she could float while Scouting. Her mind didn't weigh anything…at least she didn't think it did.

As fun as the idea of flying around was Julie decided that now wasn't the time and floated over to her body. She froze.

Where had those scars come from?

Julie's hand went to her own face even though she couldn't feel anything. A burn was curling right next to her nose, across her right cheek, and under her chin. The upper right part of her face had a burn scar that had messed up part of her eyebrow but had thankfully not reached her eye. A scar from a jagged cut went straight down the left side of her lips all the way to the bottom of her chin. The last scar was a cut going through her left eyebrow.

How did she not remember getting these? How did she even get scars on her face? She'd been wearing a helmet practically the whole time she'd been here except…

Except…For when she first arrived in Rapture…She'd had to blow up an oxygen tank only a few feet away.

Julie wondered how many of her injuries had actually been from the Big Sister.

"Are you going to stay there all day?" drawled Cohen. "I only have so much film you know."

Julie clenched her hands, went back to her body, and put the helmet back on. She could worry about her scars when she met back up with RED.


	85. What value is in a child's life?

One good thing about wandering around with no set destination in mind was that you could unexpectedly find something useful. Case in point, she'd glanced in an abandoned hotel and had noticed a Power to the People Station. She shrugged, walked in, and studied it for a minute. Should she go for the machine gun or the revolver? She decided on the revolver.

While she was waiting she noticed some missing person reports on the opposite walls. She scowled at them. Most were for young girls. A couple were for adults. She honestly had no idea who the adults were, but she took a closer look at the pictures of the girls. She recognized some of them.

That was Lucy. Lucy had tried running away because her parents made her do chores, and a trafficker found her before her parents did.

That was Indra. She had some memory problems so she wasn't sure how she'd ended up at an orphanage. If she had a poster someone had wanted her back at least.

That was Natalie. She'd gone to sleep in her room one night and woken up in an orphanage. She didn't like to think about how and why that could have happened.

That…that was Masha. Julie didn't know why she was surprised. Everyone had known Masha had been kidnapped after they'd found those tapes.

Julie couldn't identify the other girls. She felt kind of guilty about it, but she managed to remind herself that she wouldn't have known every other Little Sister in Rapture. It didn't work that way. Julie let out a sigh as she stepped away. If she stared at them much longer, she'd start comparing them to the faces of the Big Sisters she'd killed, and that was the last thing she needed.

The Power to the People station had finished modifying the revolver at this point so Julie picked it up to study it. The new attachment was some sort of metal strip clamped to the barrel of the gun. She wasn't going to even try to figure it out. She tucked it away and walked out of the hotel.


	86. Are they someone to profit from?

"Fire! Fire!"

Julie watched dispassionately as a splicer ran off. She might have felt sorry if he hadn't tried to shoot her. She walked over to a mural that depicted a man in what looked like a fancy diaper looking distastefully at a sickle and hammer, a cross, and an American flag.

That sort of thing could be found all over this part of Fort Frolic.

Cohen didn't seem 'inspired' so she started to move away before pausing and sniffing. That smelled like a Little Sister. Sander Cohen was allowing them to enter Fort Frolic. She'd figured he'd try to keep Lamb out of his part of Rapture like Sheti.

Then again, Cohen was crazier than a bag of cats.

Julie followed her nose for a few minutes and found a Rosie and a Little Sister harvesting…the splicer Julie had set on fire before. He was even still smoking. Convenient.

Julie sequestered herself in a little nook where she'd still be able to see her body, set up cyclone traps with electricity, and Scouted out towards the Rosie. She put up some Cyclone traps behind him, did her best to wrap Telekinesis around her mental arms, and grabbed the tubes. The Rosie roared and shook itself. Julie did her best to pull at the tubes, but it was difficult to concentrate enough to keep the telekinesis up. She switched to electro bolt to try and keep him still. She switched back to telekinesis and pulled at the tubes some more. One came loose, and Julie stuck a finger in the tube and used Incinerate. The Rosie froze for half a second before screaming.

No, not the Rosie. It was coming from the windows. Julie instinctively looked towards the screaming and recoiled. Outside was…something big and dark with a glowing eye looking right at her.

Julie didn't even remember retreating back to her body, but when she did the figure at the window disappeared. Julie stood and stared. That hadn't been an ADAM hallucination, but something that big couldn't move that quickly, could it?

Something tugged at her leg. Julie jumped and looked down. "Mr. B's sick," said the Little Sister.

Julie glanced at the Rosie, who was slumped over. Looks like that had worked. She scooped the Little Sister up. She glanced at the window one more time and walked away.


	87. Someone to shape as you please?

Julie watched the Little Sister climb into the vent and rolled her shoulder. Now what should she do?

"Well, now that that's over and done with…I've come up with an idea that I simply must see! Go to Hannerson's."

…What was Hannerson's?

"Hop along now Little Rabbit. I will not be kept waiting."

Julie scowled at being compared to a rabbit again. She knew she had buckteeth, but still! She crossed her arms and glowered at her feet. The arrow darted out from under her feet. Well, at least she could follow that to Hannerson's.

It didn't take too long to find it, and Julie blinked when she got a good look at the store. Mannequins in the windows were wearing fine suits and high class dresses. Julie was pretty sure the only reason they were still there was because of the security system installed around it. She heard a clicking sound and tried the door. It opened with no alarm going off.

Inside was pretty dusty and stuffy but a lot less messy than the rest of Rapture. It had faded rolls of fabrics lining one wall, and a sewing machine near another wall. Julie could identify a few other odds and ends from her attempts to fix clothes, and she was pretty sure this wasn't a straight up clothes store. Maybe a specific designer or a tailor or something? What could Cohen possibly want here?

"Hannerson was one of the best designers in Rapture. Let's see if anything will fit you."

Julie blinked. Did he seriously want her to…to…model clothes?!

…Of course he did. He was Cohen. Julie walked over to the mannequins and started disrobing them. She looked through the rest of the store to be thorough and found a few more outfits, some money, a lot of alcohol, and a tape recorder. "I don't think any of my clients will be coming by to pick up their clothes. Everyone's getting recruited to fight in this war, and not many people in Rapture have fighting experience, including me. Guess I better enjoy what time I got left."

That explained the booze.

Julie eyed the clothes. She doubted that Cohen would accept if she put it on over her Big Sister suit. She glanced at the door, which she'd discovered was the only way in or out. She took off her helmet and nervously started undoing the catches to the suit's gloves.

This was gonna _suck_. Julie pulled out a first aid hypo and put it on the counter. It took a couple of minutes for her to get the nerve to rip off her right glove.

"Holy shittin' fuck!" Julie swallowed and studied her right arm. She had been intimately familiar with burns even before meeting the Pyros and could see that her hand was covered in burn scars that extended right past her wrist. Some skin had been taken off but not too much. Now for her left arm. She took several deep breaths before she finally managed to yank it off.

"FUCKIN *bleep* OF A *bleep*!" Julie blinked. Did Cohen seriously play a bleep over her swearing just now? She just growled and held up her left arm. It was a lot worse that her right arm, the burn scars extended halfway up her forearm, skin had been torn off, she swore she could see muscle in a couple of places, and…Julie brought her hand up to her face. Yep, her left middle fingernail had been ripped off. She injected the first aid hypo and watched as the holes closed up. The nail didn't grow back. Taking off the rest of the suit wasn't as easy as she'd been hoping. She'd burned a few other spots on her body that she hadn't been aware of, and the suit stuck to them too. Thankfully, none of them were nearly as bad as her hands.

"Oh, you're a woman," noted Cohen, sounding disappointed.

Julie didn't notice because she was distracted by the scars all over her body that hadn't been there before. No way she could explain them away. She was gonna have to come clean about using ADAM, at least to Medic, which would mean explaining why it didn't hurt her.

She was going to have to come clean to RED.

They were going to be completely disgusted with her.

Julie slumped. She'd have to learn to avoid the rest of RED…if she was allowed back to base. Otherwise she'd be too busy avoiding being killed. It was depressing, and Julie didn't want to think about it so she turned her attention to trying on the clothes.

The first outfit was a crisp black suit with a red vest, black shirt, and red tie. It was about the right size for a man of her size, but it was tight in some very uncomfortable places and loose in others. The loose clothing her parents always bought for her and her sisters suddenly made a lot more sense.

"Not a bad look for you. Now lean against the counter, legs extended, cross the left behind the right, cross your arms, smolder!"

Julie frowned. Smolder? What did that mean?

 _"_ _Just keep making that look."_ Julie barely managed to keep herself from twitching as the Irish Lady reappeared. She studied Julie for a moment. _"It's starting."_ She looked down. _"I'm sorry. I couldn't think of any other way."_

Julie blinked in confusion.

The lady let out a sigh. _"I hope…that one day you can forgive me."_ And she was gone.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Try on the next one!" demanded Cohen.

Julie took off the suit and put on what was supposed to be an elegant green cocktail dress, but Julie's chest and hips were too small to go with it and made it hang in an unattractive way.

"No, that does not suit you at all. I won't waste my film on something like that!"

Glad to see they were in agreement. Julie pulled off the cocktail dress and put on a gold flapper dress with beads on the hips and a matching gold band with a fluffy white feather to put on her head. This seemed to fit her curves better, although it was a bit on the short side.

"Much better. Now, sit on the counter, lean forward, but look up at the ceiling."

Julie did all of this, noting that the ceiling had some dusty cobwebs. How had spiders gotten down here anyway?

"Tilt your head to the side."

She tilted it right.

"Your other side!"

She tilted it left.

"Good, good, on to the next one!"

Julied peeled the flapper dress off and moved to the next outfit. She wasn't really sure if it was for a man or a woman. It consisted of a white dress shirt, black vest whose bottom tips hung over her dark blue dress pants, and a dark blue tailcoat that was left open. There was even a pair of shoes with spats. It took a moment to get over her distaste for blue and put it on. It took another few minutes to figure out the shoes and spats. It was a surprisingly good fit compared to the other outfits.

"Perfect," said Cohen. "Now, smile." Julie smiled. "Really smile. I won't waste my film on fake smiles."

Why would she really smile? She wasn't happy at all! How was she supposed to get herself to actually smile and mean it?

 _"_ _I drew you a picture!"_

 _Julie looked down at a little girl she had never seen before. She smiled and kneeled down to her level. "Did you?"_

 _The girl smiled and handed the picture over. It was a messy crayon drawing with vaguely human looking shapes. "Do you like it?"_

 _Julie ruffled the little girl's hair. "I love it. Thank you."_

 _And the girl's face lit up like a thousand watts._

"Now skip along…Or at least look like you're skipping. Hm…"

Julie just blinked in confusion. That…hadn't been anything like an ADAM hallucination. There had been color, and it had felt so real, and…Those hands had been missing a couple of fingernails, and that had been her voice.

"I don't see any skipping," growled Cohen.

Julie shook her head and got to skipping. In one spot. It was weird and awkward.

"Now, cross your legs, tilt to the side, hold your hands to your head, fingers splayed, big smile!"

He better get his photo quick because this was awkward, and she was going to lose her balance very quickly.

"Done! Now, move along. I'm sure I can find one or two more good scenes."

Julie was relieved to take off the fancy outfit and put her Big Sister outfit back on. These clothes were all too fancy for her. Still, she paused for a second as she reached for the door for reasons she couldn't figure out.

She was still trying to place the source of her discomfort when she left the store.


	88. Or is it their potential

...you're most interested in?

* * *

Julie was taking care of some splicers when she saw the twins for the first time. She was using Scout to attack splicers without aggravating her arm, which was aching a bit.

"Seems it _was_ passed along," said a male voice.

Julie spun and saw a man and a woman sitting on a nearby bench. They were redheads, had freckles, and were wearing yellow Victorian clothes. They looked so similar that they had to be twins. It was the man who spoke.

"Indeed," said the woman, looking straight at Julie's mental form. "I wonder why it takes so many forms."

Julie decided to return to her body since she couldn't catch them by surprise…and they were gone. Julie blinked. Were they Houdinis? They were in pretty good shape though. She looked around for anything out of the ordinary. She paused and used Scout again.

The two were back on the bench. Julie went back to her body. They were gone. Julie used Scout. They were back. "Are you quite done?" the woman asked irritably

"Not the best use of your time," added the man.

Julie made a face. This was like that weird hallucination when she fought that Rosie.

"You'd best hurry," continued the man. "You only have so much time before you lose your chance."

"Cohen wants to see you fight one of your sisters," commented the woman.

The man tilted her head. "Not feeling so well, are you?"

At least Julie knew how to stop it. She darted back into her body. They were gone.


	89. Despair

Julie was sick of killing her sisters.

Her thoughts kept going back to what that woman in the odd hallucination had said about Cohen wanting to see her fight one of her sisters. If the fight happened, she'd have to kill the Big Sister, and she didn't want to.

She could have so easily been in their place. They could have been in her place.

It wasn't fair.

None of them deserved this.

She could smell a Big Daddy.

Julie was sick of killing them too. It felt like she was killing her father.

She knew Big Daddies were made from criminals, but that didn't really say a lot about what they'd been like before. They could have been good people who pissed off the wrong people. They could have been murderers. Either way, there was only one way out.


	90. Hurt

The Rosie didn't have a Little Sister with him at the moment so Julie decided to just follow him for now. Since it wasn't a place she'd been before she threw some Security Commands. Eventually a couple of flying turrets arrived and attempted to kill the Rosie. She electrocuted the security camera that managed to survive until after the Rosie was out of range.

The Rosie stopped at a vent and pounded on it. They stood around for a few minutes until a scrabbling sound started to come from inside the vent. A Little Sister clambered out, looking sleepy. "Do I have too?" The Rosie groaned. "Okay…" She blinked as she seemed to realize her Rosie was injured. "Owchies…" She hefted her ADAM needle. "I'll fix you!"

Julie had been hoping to get the farther away from the vent, but she'd have to deal with it. She Scouted out and hit the Rosie with a telekinetic punch. The Rosie roared and whirled around, looking for his attacker. The Little Sister jumped back. "Mr. B?" Julie hit him with an electro bolt before either could react. He screamed and shrieked, and Julie winced as she saw the shrieking thing outside the window again. Julie used Incinerate and pulled and stabbed until the Rosie stopped moving and Julie hurried back to her body to stop the shrieking.

The Little Sister looked very confused about what just happened. She still looked confused as Julie walked over, Cured her, and placed her in the vent. Julie leaned her head against the vent. She was feeling pretty confused herself.

A loud shriek ripped through the air. Julie darted up and whirled towards the windows before realizing it had been a Big Sister screaming and not whatever was outside.

A very fast piano piece started playing over the intercom.

Julie started reloading the guns. Should she use a first aid hypo? An EVE hypo? She hadn't had a headache since she gave herself the Metabolic EVE tonic, but she didn't want to push it too much.

Julie went ahead and gave herself a first aid hypo just as the Big Sister attacked. Julie instinctively threw out a cyclone trap that sent the Big Sister back a few feet, but she caught herself and threw herself at Julie again. Julie caught a stab and landed a side kick on the Big Sister's stomach. An electric jolt raced up her leg and made her seize up. The Big Sister grabbed Julie's leg and twisted.

Luckily, the move just made Julie lose her balance and slam into the floor, unable to catch herself. She spun her leg out of the Big Sister's grip, twisted, jump-rolled to her feet while pulling out her shotgun, and started shooting. The solid slug pushed the Big Sister back, but the electrical charge didn't affect her. The Big Sister lunged at her so Julie shot her again simply for breathing room.

Can't do hand-to-hand. Can't use Electrobolt. Julie telekinetically grabbed the dead Rosie and threw it at the Big Sister. The Big Sister was knocked a few feet back and shrieked.

Hey, wait a minute.

The Big Sister lunged again and Julie _caught_ her. The Big Sister shrieked angrily as she twisted around in midair. Julie briefly wondered how long she'd been able to lift such a heavy person and grunted as the Big Sister's twitching loosened her grip. Julie's grip finally broke as the Big Sister shot an electro bolt and she was forced to dodge, but she had a plan now!

The Big Sister lunged at Julie _again_ and Julie caught her and started firing her revolver as the Big Sister struggled to break free before firing an electro bolt at Julie. Julie ducked. She grabbed the Big Sister and fired again. The Big Sister twisted and spun around and broke free. Julie had to dodge several bolts as she tried to grab the Big Sister again but couldn't get a good grip. She threw what rubble she could along with some Incinerates. She pulled out the machine gun to fire some more rounds. She fired only a short burst before stopping with a hiss of pain. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire.

Shit.

The Big Sister pounced on Julie. Electricity coursed through her body. Her entire body seized. She couldn't move. Could barely see. She was _scared_. She lashed out mentally. The weight on her disappeared, and she rapidly blinked away stars and climb to her feet.

The Big Sister had been thrown for a loop too. Julie ran forward and stabbed her without thinking. Both tensed up. Then the Big Sister fell forwards through Julie.

Julie blinked and looked behind her towards her body. She ran over and jumped back into it. She tried to jump up but failed thanks to her spinning head. Okay, she had no idea what had happened there.

"Well, that was anticlimactic. You couldn't have had a decent swordfight?" complained Cohen.

Julie ignored him and looked over towards the Big Sister who wasn't moving. Julie tried to stand, but her head swam. Instead she crawled over to the Big Sister to check her pulse.

The Big Sister was dead. Just like all the others…

The others…

Cohen watched her kill this Big Sister for his own amusement. Lamb had to have been watching as the other Big Sisters were killed.

How many others were watching?

Did _anyone_ care that they had been normal children? Had anyone _ever_ cared?

Julie screamed and punched the ground with her left arm until her physical pain overwhelmed her anger and despair. She rolled over onto her back. Stupid. Now she couldn't use either of her hands. She closed her eyes.

Someone picked up her injured hand. Her eyes shot open as she summoned fire to her hands.

 _"_ _You need to take better care of yourself."_

And the fire died as Julie recognized it was the Irish Lady holding her hand. She looked more beat up than last time with a noticeable bandage wrapped around her head and covering her right eye. She still looked like an ADAM hallucination.

But the sheer cold and pressure on Julie's hand said she was real.

 _"_ _Not that I don't blame you for being upset,"_ continued the lady as she pressed down on Julie's hand and fingers. _"Even if you can't recognize them, you must have known each other, maybe even been friends."_

And Julie still couldn't say anything because her brain could not comprehend something that looked like a hallucination being real.

 _"_ _You should really try a different method of dealing with your emotions. You can't afford to hurt yourself like this. You'll end up with bone breaks healing badly."_ The lady chuckled. _"Lucky for you I come from a family of doctors so I know how to set bones."_ She held Julie's hand tightly. She frowned at it for a moment. _"I wonder…"_ She reached for Julie's pack and unzipped it.

Julie had finally figured out what was going on: Irish Lady was a ghost.

…Did that mean the other times Irish Lady had shown up Julie had actually been seeing a ghost?

 _"_ _Hold still."_ A prick brought Julie out if her thoughts. The pain in her shoulder started to abate. She couldn't tell what was going on with her hand because it felt so numb. Julie glanced at the lady and saw she was holding an empty first aid hypo. _"I don't know enough to tell if you need another hypo,"_ she admitted.

Julie gripped the lady's hand, just to be sure she was real.

The lady turned to look at the Big Sister. _"So, now you have a choice to make. Whether it's right or wrong is up to you."_ She turned to Julie. _"Whatever you choose, we'll support you. You're not as alone as you think."_

Then she was just gone.

Julie opened and closed her hand before darting up and using Scout. She still didn't see anything different. She popped back into her body. Had that been real? It must have been. Her bag was unzipped, and the used hypo was lying there.

Unless she had done it herself and really was going crazy. It would make just as much sense as a ghost following her around, but how do you tell if you're going crazy?

"If you are quite done with your tantrum…" Julie glared up at the ceiling. Good thing Cohen couldn't see through her helmet. "I do believe that's enough fun for one day. Now simply hop along to a bathysphere, and you will find the way to Fontaine's former business open."

…That was it? That was all there was to it?

Well, Julie wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She stood up…and stared at her dead sister for several moments.

She had a decision to make.


	91. Ah, the spoils of victory…

It's not relevant to the story, but today is my birthday!

* * *

Julie made one last stop before leaving Fort Frolic: A Gatherer's Garden. Mainly because from what she remembered Fontaine's store didn't have any for some reason.

Oh, wait. That was because it was sunk before Gatherer's Gardens started being produced.

Julie found the Gatherer's Garden just in time to see a Little Sister climb into a vent across from it. She shrugged and carefully opened the teddy bear in front of the machine.

Her eyes bugged out at the container of ADAM. She wasn't sure how much was in it, but she could see it wasn't all going to fit in her ADAM container. Where had Eleanor found this much ADAM? How had she managed to sneak it out under her mother's watch?

Julie carefully placed the container on the ground and pulled out a gene tonic. She squinted at it for a moment. She was pretty sure it was EVE Saver…2? There was a plus on the picture anyway, and that usually meant it was a second level. She would need to get another tonic slot unless she wanted to find another gene bank.

The last item…was a vanilla cupcake in a plastic bag. It made Julie realize that she hadn't had to constantly find food and eat it to sustain herself while running around Fort Frolic, so the Extra Nutritions must be cancelling out the EVE Metabolism.

Julie still ate the cupcake. She was sick of the canned food she'd been surviving on.

Now what to spend the ADAM on? She definitely needed a tonic slot if she wanted to use the EVE Saver 2. Maybe buy a second one just in case…although she didn't really have any gene tonics that she thought would help her out. She'd see what she had left after she finished here. After she injected the tonic slot she injected the EVE Saver. The lightheadedness didn't last long this time.

Next, Julie bought the Insect Swarm 3 upgrade. Her dad had talked about it a bit. It sounded like the only difference was in how tough the bees were and how they acted, so hopefully it wouldn't cause even more damage to her arms.

Now, Julie needed to figure out if there was anything else to buy, namely the health and EVE upgrades. Given how much she was using her plasmids, the extra EVE would be nice, but so would surviving increasingly more severe injuries. Then again, she'd seen splicers survive having their heads partially blown off presumably because of the health upgrades, and she didn't think she wanted to survive that. That much frontal lobe damage would make her a completely different person anyway.

Julie had her Ma to thank for that piece of information. Why she thought the tale of Nicholas Gage was an appropriate bedtime story…

Anyway, there was a limit to what she wanted to be able to live through, and if by some miracle she did manage to keep her job she needed to try and stay as similar to the BLU Scout as possible. Julie nodded and decided not to get any health upgrades…for now. That still brought up the question of what to buy. She wanted a save a bit of ADAM in case she needed to buy something else. She guessed she'd save enough for a gene tonic slot…and maybe a plasmid slot. That was…115 units in total. She had 295 units. So that was 180 units she could spend. EVE upgrades cost 40 units each so that meant she could get four of them.

She really hoped she did the math correctly. Otherwise, this could come back to bite her in the ass. Still, she really did have to stick to plasmids as much as possible with how much her shoulder was hurting, so she figured she'd be able to live with herself if she had gotten something wrong.

That done, Julie followed the arrow to the bathysphere.


	92. Things can change so quickly…

As soon as Julie closed the bathysphere door, she started trying to work the radio. It took a few tries for it to go through. "Hey, are you guys still alive?"

"You abandoned your squad mates!" shouted Soldier.

Julie winced. Well, at least Soldier was alive, but… "No, no, no. There was a scrambler. I could only talk to Cohen!" she explained. It occurred to her that they had no idea who that was. "It took forever to get him to let me out and turn it off! Guy's completely nuts…" She was suddenly struck by a sense of paranoia. "Hope he can't hear me."

"Why should we believe you?" snapped Sniper.

Julie blinked. Sniper was alive, but he sounded…angry. She'd expected Soldier to be angry, but if Sniper was angry…Were the others angry with her too? "I…" What could she tell them? "…Don't have any proof. I don't know how to make you believe me."

And then Medic decided to chime in. "Engineer's hand was taken off."

"What?!" Julie stared at her radio in horror. "How did that happen?!"

"Lamb cut the power to the area we were in, leaving only emergency lighting," explained Spy, sounding much calmer than the others. "A splicer managed to get past Pyro to him."

"It had no eyelids and meat hooks," said Demo.

"You can see why we are less than pleased," said Spy.

Yeah, she could. "Crap!" This was bad. "Crap! I thought the spider splicers…" She hadn't warned RED about them, had she? She heard Heavy question where the spider came from in the background. "That…" It seemed natural to call them spiders when they crawled on the walls and ceilings. She wasn't sure who had come up with it. "That's what Dad called them," Julie decided to say. "'Cause they climb on walls and ceilings." She groaned. "Shit…I didn't think you'd have trouble with 'em," she admitted.

"Actually, didn't we see one before when we first got here? Sniper shot someone who had been climbing on the ceiling," said Medic.

"Yeah, well, that was before I ran out of bullets," snapped Sniper. Sounded like he was going to be in a bad mood for a while. Not that she could blame him since without a decent weapon…

Julie got an idea. "I think…" Her shoulder throbbed. "I think I can help with that. Have you seen the Power to the People stations?"

"I think I saw something like that," said Demo absentmindedly.

"They can upgrade weapons," explained Julie. "I can send a couple I've upgraded over." No reason to keep them if she was avoiding using them anyway.

"What sort of upgrades?" asked Soldier. He sounded interested. Good.

"It depends on the weapon. You usually get to choose more accuracy, less kickback, bigger clip size, that sort of thing," Julie explained. "I got a shotgun that fires electrified buckshot that'll electrocute any splicer it hits."

"That is a good gun," said Heavy. That was high praise coming from him.

Julie nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah, I'll send that and the revolver over. Just find a pneumo. Most of them still work."

"A…what?" questioned Spy.

"Uh…" Right, they wouldn't know what that was. "It uses air pressure to transport tubes of stuff or something like that. It was how most deliveries were made," she explained. "I don't actually know how to use it, but my Ma does." Something occurred to her. "Actually, if you need any supplies, she might be able to send them over to you."

"We could use some saline and a tetanus shot," said Medic.

Julie nodded. That was something she could remember.

"Why haven't we heard from your mother?" questioned Spy.

Julie blinked. "I dunno. I gave her your frequency, but she seems kind of nervous about talking to you." Well, they were trained killers. "Maybe my letters about you guys scared her."

"That's plausible." Spy was silent for a moment. "Fine. We'll split up and see if we can find a pneumo."

"Great!" Splitting up might not be the best idea, but they couldn't take Engie with them if he was in bad shape, which he must be if he hadn't said anything. "Where are you guys anyway?"

"Artemis apartments."

"Oh, that." She recalled a few pneumo locations. "If you're near the entrance, there's probably a pneumo next to it."

She heard them start talking about who should go and quickly switched frequencies. She realized she had arrived at Fontaine's store during the conversation and sheepishly stepped out as she contacted her mother. "Hey, Ma, I'm out of Fort Frolic."

"Is Cohen still alive?"

"Yeah, but all he did was make me pose so he could take pictures."

"Thank God."

"Anyway, RED needs some supplies. I was thinking we could send some things with the pneumos."

"Well, first you need to find two working pneumos."

"I know." Julie started letting out some bees. "I already told the others to find a pneumo. I'll find a rock or some paper or something to send to you for the test."

Fortunately, pneumos were everywhere. It only took Julie a few moments to find one. She grabbed her radio. "Okay, I got a pneumo. It's 18265." She opened the pneumo, grabbed the canister inside, stuffed in a few pieces of rubble inside, and put it back in. "Okay, ready." She heard the sound of the canister being sucked away. That was a good sign.

She switched frequencies. "You guys find a pneumo?"

"Yes," said Spy.

"Okay, we gotta make sure it still works. There should be a number right under 'pneumo'. It's to determine which pneumo the canister is sent to," Julie explained. "What's the number?"

"16500."

"Huh, nice number," commented Julie. "There should be a canister inside. Stick something inside of it, and Ma will see if the tube's still good." Since that wouldn't take more than a minute she switched frequencies. "Okay, they're using pneumo 16500. Did my canister make it through?"

"Yes."

"Great!" Julie took a moment to hurl a splicer off a cliff. "What about the other one?"

"…I'm not getting anything."

"Shit. Let me check with the guys." Julie switched frequencies. "Has the pneumo moved at all?"

"No."

"Must be broken. Better find a different one," said Julie. "But don't worry. They're all over the place, especially in the apartments."

"I will find a No-Mo!" said Soldier.

"No, it's pneumo…I don't know why it's called pneumo," admitted Julie. "It's spelled so weird though."

"We found one. It's labelled as 1647," said Spy.

"Okay, I'll tell Ma." Julie switched frequencies. "Now, they're using 1647."

"Mm hm…" There were a few minutes of silence. "It got here. Seems we'll be able to deliver the weapons."

"Could you get them some saline and a tetanus shot too? Engie got hurt pretty badly."

"I have some I can send," said Ma.

Julie let out a sigh of relief. "That's great. I'm gonna send over my revolver and shotgun." She didn't want to send away all her guns, and she wasn't sure the machine gun would fit anyway. She slipped the revolver in the canister. Then she took it back out because she realized it was a horrible idea to send it through while it was loaded. She removed the bullets and put it back in. "Okay, I've got my revolver in the pneumo. I'm gonna let the guys know." She switched frequencies again. "Okay, Ma's sending over the medicine, and I'm sending over a revolver. The medicine'll probably get there first."

"Where did your mother procure the medicine?" questioned Spy.

"Uh…Pretty sure she brought it with her." Where _had_ Ma gotten that stuff? "Uh, anyway, the revolver looks funny, but it holds 24 bullets and does more damage."

RED was silent for several minutes while Julie killed any splicers that came by. "You have got to be joking," Spy suddenly said.

"Huh?"

"The gun you sent has a can attached to it!"

Julie smiled. "Oh, you got it. Great."

"That's not the point."

"Hey, Rapture has to make do with what it has," said Julie. "Besides, I've been using it for a while now, and it hasn't given me any problems."

"Ugh."

"Well, I'm gonna send over the shotgun now," said Julie. "…As soon as Ma sends over another canister."

A canister suddenly appeared with a 'whump' sound.

"Huh. Convenient…" Julie stuck the shotgun in the canister and closed it before briefly switching frequencies. "Okay, shotgun is ready for transport."

"All right."

"Also, where'd you get the medicine? You don't work at a hospital."

"Blackmail."

"Okay…" Well, whatever worked. Julie switched back to RED. "Okay, so the shotgun I'm sending over has the barrel sawed off, and I had to upgrade it to hold six shells, and it's got that attachment that electrocutes the buckshot."

"No, it electrifies the buckshot," corrected Spy.

"Whatever."

They waited another few minutes. "I believe this is it."

"I'll take it!" declared Soldier. Spy made an annoyed sound.

"Anything else you guys need?" asked Julie. "I need to make sure you guys can get to the bathysphere store."

"You plan to do so by yourself?" pressed Spy.

"Hey, that's what scouts are supposed to do, right? I've gotten this far by myself. I'll be fine."

"Scout, we are going to have a very long talk when we get out of here," said Spy, his tone somewhat threatening.

Ah, well, if they had to kill her…It would be worth it. "Okay. See you later." She turned off the radio and started forward.


	93. Constants and Variables

Sorry I didn't update yesterday. I worked a 12 hour shift and was not thinking straight by the time I was done.

* * *

Julie glared at the large gate blocking her way. It had been in place for 10 years, and it seemed to be stuck. She could get over it, but how what about the guys?

 _"_ _A sky hook?"_

 _"_ _Sky hook? You mean the air grabber?"_

Julie frowned. That sounded…familiar. She looked up and zeroed in on a hook hanging over the gate before shaking her head. That was a stupid and dangerous way to get around. She wasn't even sure it would work for someone as heavy as…Heavy.

Or someone with one hand. Damn it. She kept thinking about Engie and wondering if he was even going to be able to stay on RED.

Julie shook her head and kicked the gate, which refused to budge. She tried moving it with telekinesis…and it was bolted in place.

The guys would just have to let Demo deal with it. If he couldn't…They'd figure something out.

Julie jumped over it…and found herself at the edge of an abyss. "Holy shit!" No way the guys were getting across this on their own. Julie eyed the water shooting across it. Maybe you could get across if it was frozen…Too bad she didn't bother to get that plasmid.

Julie jumped across the chasm. That was easy enough. She supposed she could carry them across if she had to. Might be a problem with Heavy. Maybe she could do a separate trip for his weapons?

Yeah, when pigs fly.

'Hey, Eleanor, you there?'

Silence. Then… _Feeling better?_

'No…Maybe a little." Julie rubbed her arm. "Uh, I'm in Fontaine's store, and there's a huge hole in the floor you have to get across. Any idea how a normal person can get across it and how to get it to RED?"

 _Oh, I don't think you need to worry about that._ Eleanor sounded very amused about something.

Julie decided not to press. 'So, how's your dad doing?'

 _He's found his way to Fontaine Futuristics._

Julie made a face at the name. She didn't remember much about it, but knowing what had been done there…A splicer came out of the door to the elevator. Julie casually grabbed her with Telekinesis and threw her into the abyss, ignoring the echoing screams. 'Good luck. I'm gonna try and clear out the department store for the guys.'

 _You won't have to worry about Big Sisters or Big Daddies. Little Sisters avoid the area for some reason._

That was good. At this point Julie could handle a typical splicer. She might have trouble with the heavy splicers, but she hadn't seen a lot of those. She glanced down and saw the arrow dart towards an elevator. Nearby was a model of the department store that Julie walked over to examine. It was in pretty bad shape, but Julie could still make out the main features. She was in the main middle structure, and there were two side structures you needed to take a tram to. Where were the bathyspheres located again? She wanted to say they were in Housewares for some reason. So where did she have to…It looked like it would be right outside the elevator a couple of floors down.

Julie paused as she was about to step in the elevator. Maybe she should make sure the guys would know where to go. She glanced at her harpoon and down at the floor. Well, she could see that it was easily scratched. She knelt down and started carving.


	94. Admitting is the first step

"You have got to be kidding me." Julie had had to kill several splicers as soon as she stepped out of the elevator. And then she realized that the entrance to the tram was across an even bigger chasm…which also had burst pipes spewing water across it.

How were those pipes even still supplying water?

 _"_ _That splicer had no problem freezing a path for himself before."_

So, it _could_ be frozen.

Her radio suddenly came on. She held it up as she started wandering to the right where a sign with an old man was. "Hello?"

"We have rejoined the others," said Spy.

Julie felt relieved beyond all belief. "Great. Where are you guys holed up anyway?" asked Julie. "I haven't heard you get attacked yet."

"An apartment you need a code to enter," said Spy.

That was unusual. Most places had been broken into and stripped by now. Or at least had their locks broken. If the lock was still functional, someone might still be living there…Or at least using it for storage. "Oh! You should check the kitchen. People sometimes hide stuff in the oven and fridge."

Spy didn't reply. Julie figured he was looking around as suggested and walked through the doors behind the ice rink sign. The room/hallway behind them was nothing special.

"There's napalm in the oven," Spy said suddenly, sounding confused.

"I've seen weirder." Julie opened the opposite door and frowned when she saw some splicers gathered in the center of the room, but there were also some stairs to the left. Maybe she could get the higher ground. She quickly started up them.

"There was a flamethrower in the refrigerator."

Julie nodded. That made perfect sense. "That's probably what the napalm was for." She glanced over the railing to make sure the splicers hadn't noticed anything. She stepped away and took a deep breath. "So do you guys still wanna meet up in the department store?" she asked. "I'm already here." She paused in thought. "Guess I should make sure there are still bathyspheres." And then she realized something horrible. "Wait, crap, can Engie work on 'em with one hand?"

Silence. "We'll figure something out," Spy finally said.

Julie stopped and swallowed. "I…" How does she put this into words? "I'm sorry about what happened to Engie." What else could she say? "I'm gonna try and thin out the splicers in the department store." She didn't think Engie would be able to fight with one hand.

"And how do you plan to do that?" demanded Spy.

"Hey, give me some credit. I've survived this long on my own." Because she spliced herself up. "Traps aren't too different from setting up pranks." Julie started walking again. She suddenly recalled that spider splicers weren't the only dangerous splicers they might run into. "Oh, don't forget about the Houdini splicers. They can teleport. Makes a weird sound though. And a lot of them throw fire around. I don't mean like with a flamethrower or a Molotov cocktail. They use a plasmid that lights their hands on fire and throw it." Although someone had to be using all those chemical throwers. "Some use electricity or ice instead," she added. "Plus, I saw some invisible splicers. Er, well, not 'saw', but you know what I mean."

Spy groaned. "Wonderful." He sighed. "Fine. Where would you suggest going next?"

Julie pushed into the dressing rooms. "If the path is still intact…" Julie suddenly realized that she was using words she didn't usually use. Must have picked it up from the ADAM memories. "The next place to go is the zoo. Then Ryan University. It's like a college town contained entirely in one place," she explained. "After that is Fort Frolic. Then the Department Store. You're almost halfway there!" That was a horrible attempt to cheer them up.

"We should move now," rumbled Heavy in the background. "Splicers will find us if we stay too long." The radio cut out.

Julie let out a long breath before clipping the radio back to her belt. She wondered how bad it was with them. Maybe she _should_ go back.

She shook her head. That would take too much time, probably make them an even bigger target, and they could take care of themselves just fine without her…

…

Who was she kidding? If they were fine, Engie wouldn't have lost a hand. She was just a coward who didn't want to have to tell them what she really was, and she had never felt more ashamed of that than she did just now. She hung her head and walked out the door…

And had to bring up her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight.

What.

Julie lowered her hand and found herself looking at the sky. But that was impossible. She was still in Rapture…Still in…

Julie looked around. She was standing in an open air park with a railed balcony overlooking a fountain in front of her. Several people dressed from the turn of the century milled about down below. Julie turned and saw some trees and flower patches with well-worn paths winding through them. She turned back around.

Dark broken architecture with a scent of mildew. She was back in Rapture.

What _was_ that? It couldn't have been real, and she knew it wasn't an ADAM hallucination. The clothing the people had been wearing looked really old and wasn't anything she'd ever seen in Rapture. So it was a different sort of hallucination? Again? She was going to end up in big trouble if that kept happening!

She looked over the balcony. The splicers hadn't moved during her hallucination.

Time to get to work.


	95. Oh What ever happened to those?

"How many of these are there?" Julie questioned out loud. She had finished killing the splicers, killed some more splicers, gone up some stairs…

And the stairs were gone.

It was a good thing the guys weren't going to have to come down this way. This hole didn't even have water gushing over it.

Julie Scouted across, broke a splicer's neck, and then jumped across. She took a closer look at the bare shelves and noticed empty clothes hangers. This must have been a clothing store then.

 _"_ _Magic pants are a real thing? Why are they a thing?"_

Julie let out a snort.

 _"_ _Mystical shoes make sense. Enchanted hats make sense. Even charmed shirts make some sense. But pants? Really?"_

Now Julie wanted to know the story behind that memory.

Her radio abruptly came on. "Scout, how do we get the little girl to stop following Heavy around?" demanded Medic.

Julie frowned as she picked up the radio. "Little girl?"

"The one that keeps clinging to him."

"Oh!" Julie should probably be worried that she considered a little girl different from a Little Sister. "That same Little Sister? She showed up again?" This generation of Little Sisters looked a lot alike for some reason. Even she was having trouble telling them apart.

"She showed up four time!" exclaimed Demo.

"Really?" Okay, that _was_ odd. Why didn't she stay in the vents or find a new…Heavy had the unfortunate luck of smelling like a Big Daddy when he wasn't able to bathe regularly…and was about the right size…and had a very deep voice. "Maybe she…she…What was the word Ma used? Had to do with ducks…"

"The word you're looking for is imprinting," supplied Medic.

"…Yeah, sounds about right," admitted Julie, trying to figure this out while looking out for splicers. She could hear some up those stairs. "They're only supposed to do that with Big Daddies though…" And they couldn't even differentiate between different Big Daddies. She should know. They'd all looked the same after…

"And how do we get her to stop?" demanded Spy.

Wow, he sounded annoyed. Julie thought for a moment. How do you get a Little Sister to stop following a Big Daddy? Kill the Big Daddy…Yeah, not an option. Cure the Little Sister? Well, that's just because they get drawn to those pheromones Ma brought with her, and the guys couldn't do that anyway. Get her to a vent? That would work if the Little Sister actually waited for a Big Daddy to come fetch her, which this one wasn't for some reason. Julie wasn't going to consider killing the kid.

"I don't think you can," Julie finally admitted. "She's…Gah…" How do you put into words just what Big Daddies are to Little Sisters? They're protectors and fathers and their whole world and…

 _"_ _To a child mother is God."_

Not talking about mothers, but the idea is the same, only different because Big Daddies are still mortal and can die just like anyone else…and they will just to keep their Little Sister alive for another few seconds. "Heavy's the most important thing in her life right now, and…" You don't just stop loving someone. "I have no idea how to change her mind."

"Maybe we could pass her onto a Big-"

"No!" Julie shouted into the radio. "They'll kill you!" She knew the guys were tough, but a Big Daddy was something else, and they were down two men and had limited supplies. The voices up the stairs stopped. Great, they must have heard her. "Just get her to a vent whenever she shows up, and make sure you stay far away from any Big Daddies." Letting her see an actual Big Daddy might work, but it wasn't worth the risk. "If they even think she's with you, they won't stop until you're dead." And then someone shot Julie.

The shot ricocheted off her helmet so she was fine. She yanked the offending splicer onto her harpoon while shooting the rest with electricity.

This wouldn't take long.


	96. Best not to tempt fate

It took longer than Julie was expecting. More splicers had appeared while she was setting the first group on fire. It was enough that she was having trouble keeping track of them. It didn't help that they had guns. Julie had to keep moving and ducking behind cover. Where had all these splicers come from? She'd thought you had to go through Fort Frolic to get to the store.

And of course the guys had to call during the fight. "Scout," said Spy.

Julie groaned. "I'm busy!" A splicer appeared next to her, but it was just the one so she was able to electrocute and shoot him.

Spy had to have heard the gunshots, but he didn't hang up. "Where does the oxygen come from?"

Julie started letting out some bees. "Why do you care?"

"Pyro."

That one name explained pretty much everything. Trees make oxygen, but they also burn real easily. The guys must've gotten to the zoo. "It's in Arcadia. You're not there. The botanical garden got out of control." Julie hung up before anyone else could ask about Arcadia. She briefly darted out from behind her cover, electrocuted splicers, shot them (So glad she kept the machine gun.), and ducked back behind cover.

She could still hear some splicers moving around. She shot out of her body, set them on fire, and darted back into her body. She listened as they flailed before falling silent. She Scouted again and let out a sigh of relief as she saw they were all dead. She popped back in and rubbed her shoulder. That last fight left it really sore. She'd have to be more careful if this sort of fight was going to affect her shoulder so badly.

She stood, turned, and paused. The Irish lady was standing in the middle of the bodies, staring up at something. Julie glanced in the direction, but didn't see anything. She turned back just in time to see the lady collapse and disappear.

That couldn't be good.


	97. When was the last time you talked to God

Julie had found the women's clothing section, which was bigger than the men's section, and had been carefully sneaking up some stairs when she had noticed some railing and…something blue? Julie walked over and leaned over the railing.

She didn't see anything blue now. It had been about the same color as an ADAM hallucination so that was probably what it was.

A scream interrupted her thoughts. Julie spun and barely managed to block a wrench from a female splicer. Julie quickly slit her throat and looked around. No other splicers, but she should move to be sure. She ducked into the nearby shoe store.

 _"_ _Ms. Andersdotter?"_

Julie groaned and turned to watch the latest Irish lady scene. The other woman on the other side of the counter nodded. _"Yes, can I help you?"_

The Irish lady held out some papers. _"I just thought I'd see if you were here so I could drop off Mary's make-up work."_

The sales lady frowned. _"What are you talking about?"_

 _"_ _Huh…"_ Irish lady pulled the papers back. _"I'm sorry. I thought you were Mary Andersdotter's mother."_

 _"_ _I am."_

The Irish lady looked confused. _"Then you must know that Mary will need to make up the classwork she missed today."_

 _"_ _Mary wasn't out today,"_ said Andersdotter.

 _"_ _What? Yes, she was,"_ insisted Irish lady. _"Mary never came to school today."_

Andersdotter's mouth fell open. _"But-but-She was…"_

Irish lady got a horrified look on her face as she figured out what had really happened. _"Oh God."_

Andersdotter fainted.

Julie looked away. They probably hadn't realized what was going on at the time, but it didn't take more than a second for Julie to figure out what happened to Mary. What made it worse was that she didn't have any sisters named Mary. Mary had either been killed as a Little Sister or grew up to become a Big Sister…which probably meant she was still dead.

Julie hesitated for a moment before retreating towards what she was fairly certain was a storage room. Once she was certain she was out of sight and would be able to see anyone trying to sneak up at her, she did something she hadn't done in years: She knelt and prayed.

She prayed for Mary and her mother. She prayed for the Little Sisters that her second father hadn't been able to save. She prayed again for the ones that became Big Sisters that had to be killed. She prayed that they wouldn't have to leave behind any of the new Little Sisters. She prayed for Engie in the hopes it would help him recover, even just a little. She prayed that RED would be able to survive.

She didn't pray for forgiveness. She didn't think she deserved it.

Despite that depressing thought, she did feel…lighter, like a load had been taken off her shoulders. She knew a lot still rested on her, but it seemed like…someone was next to her and helping her carry it.

She felt…relieved.


	98. Do you still believe in him?

Julie decided to go to the jewelry store next, killing another few splicers on her way over. She peered through the windows. No splicers, but she noticed that among the trash littering the store, there was still some jewelry. Not that she cared about jewelry, but if the splicers hadn't cleaned it out, there might be some money she could use in there. Julie pushed the doors open.

And…this was not the store she'd seen through the windows.

The store was thankfully empty of people so she could stare at the stands of fruits and vegetables filling the store, along with various boxes and other goods lining the shelves along the walls. An old fashioned record player thing was playing old timey music in a corner.

Julie grabbed the box next to her. It was supposed to be chocolate, but when she opened it she found a bottle of soda. She made a face as she put it back on the shelf and walked up to the counter. There was a container on it that had 'honor system' written on it. She glanced in it and was surprised to see several coins in it.

The honor system still worked? What was this anyway? It had to be another hallucination, but it seemed a lot more real than usual…

Julie picked up one of the coins and studied it. It had a stylized eagle on one side and some sort of shield on the other side. It definitely wasn't from Rapture, and it wasn't American currency. That was about as much as she could tell about it besides the fact that it had apparently been made in 1907. Did that make it an antique?

"Scout?"

Julie jumped and looked for the new hallucination before realizing it was Spy speaking from her radio. "Huh?"

"Where did you say to go next?"

Where were they again? She turned as she thought…And she was looking out the jewelry store windows. The old timey music was now broken jazz, the wood structure was metal, and the boxes and stands had been replaced by scattered mannequin heads and trash.

…Zoo. They'd been in the zoo. "Ryan University…There should be a door…" She abruptly realized there was something clenched in her free hand and opened it. She was holding a silver coin with an eagle design that had been made in 1907. "…You can get to Fort Frolic from there."

"Are you all right Scout?" asked Spy.

"Yeah…" No. Something was very wrong. "Just tired…" Was she really hallucinating or was something more happening? "See you soon."

She stuffed the coin into her pack.


	99. Or do you believe in something else?

Julie had decided to check out Rapture on Ice to be on the safe side, but that had turned out to be unnecessary. It was completely deserted. Probably because it was so cold…

Julie swallowed and rubbed her arms. It almost felt like her body was burning. Her vision was white. She could hear shrieking echoing around her.

Julie jerked back to reality. No Big Sister, no frostbite, just an abandoned ice rink. At least she knew what that hallucination had been. Julie hesitated. She didn't want to stay here, but she didn't want to be afraid of ice. That was just…well, maybe not stupid, but it was at least inconvenient. If nothing else, she should do a sweep to make sure nothing nasty was hiding out here. She took a deep breath and carefully walked into the ice rink.

 _"_ _Damn it."_ Julie Scouted towards the sound. _"That son of a bitch drank every last bottle of Old Man Winter."_

It was just another hallucination, a young, attractive woman and an old man. Julie didn't see any real splicers so it should be all right for her to leave.

 _"_ _I think I can help."_ The woman held up her hands, tore them apart, and the container with the empty bottles had something tear open the space inside to reveal an untouched bottle. Julie recoiled with a yelp.

The man jumped back too. _"Whoa! What was that?!"_

 _"_ _It's a, uh, new plasmid,"_ said the woman. No it wasn't! Julie had never heard of a plasmid that did…whatever that was! _"Lets me…lets me bring in things that might exist…but don't."_

That made no sense!

The old man look just as confused. _"Not sure I understand."_ That made two of them. _"What's it called?"_

 _"_ _Tear."_

 _"_ _Where'd you get it?"_

The woman put her hands on her hips. _"You don't expect a girl to share all her secrets, do you, Mr. DeWitt?"_

Julie's head erupted into pain. She stumbled, clutching her head and biting her lip to keep from crying out and attracting attention. After a moment the pain receded. Julie shook her head. That had been bizarre. She turned to leave the ice rink as quickly as possible, pulling out her radio. "Hey, Ma?"

"Yes?"

"Are there any plasmids that bring in things that might exist but don't?"

"…Julie, that makes no sense…also is not possible."

Julie nodded. "Yeah, I didn't think so."

"Then why did you ask?"

"I've been having some really weird hallucinations." Julie walked out of the rink. "Like samurais," she deadpanned.

"Samurais?" asked Ma in disbelief. "What on Earth would Samurais be doing in Rapture?"

"No idea," said Julie as she watched the Samurai effectively slice up several splicers.

"Maybe you should avoid splicing for a while. That can't be from someone's memory."

"Aren't we supposed to be immune to that sorta thing?"

"Yes, but none of you have ever had this much ADAM introduced into your system in such a short amount of time," pointed out Ma, which Julie had to admit was true. "Hopefully, whatever is causing it will only be temporary."

Julie frowned. Wasn't Eleanor being regularly injected with ADAM? She'd sounded fine so far. "Right. No injecting. Got it. See ya." She hung up.

Julie wasn't sure it was a deranged hallucination. It just seemed so real. Then again, that was probably what made crazy people believe what they were seeing was real in the first place. Maybe she'd see if she could contact Eleanor during the next one.

* * *

I won't have internet access for the next couple of days so I posted extra chapters today. Merry Christmas!


	100. Oh God, not these two again

Julie had made a quick stop at Fontaine's Plasmids to kill some more splicers. Besides noticing how easy it was to take them out while her body was sequestered away and her astral self took care of things, she didn't notice anything particularly interesting. That was her last stop before following the arrow over the chasm to the bathysphere.

She flipped the coin over her fingers while she waited to reach Housewares. Something about it seemed special, but she couldn't quit place what. Her thoughts were interrupted as the bathysphere came to a stop and opened. She pocketed the coin and climbed out.

No obvious splicers besides some bodies lying around. She tossed out some bees. They buzzed about aimlessly before coming back to her. She shrugged and headed for Electronics.

A couple of TVs were still on. It illuminated more bodies. Julie let out more bees. They ignored the ones near her and flew off. Julie looked around and noticed a broken Bistro sign to her left. She walked over towards it.

Inside the bistro were more bodies, along with furniture that was still in surprisingly good shape. Something moved. Julie darted behind cover and glanced out.

Two people in a booth, a man and a woman, and…they were not splicers. They weren't malformed at all and were very clean. They looked like they were related, similar facial features, freckles, and red hair. Also, their clothes were very old fashioned. Julie squinted. Something about them seemed familiar.

Both turned towards her hiding spot. "Are you going to come out or not?" asked the woman.

Fuck. Well, they didn't look spliced, so Julie should be okay. Julie stood and walked over to their booth, taking a moment to stare at them.

"Tea?" offered the man

"Or coffee?" offered the woman

Julie blinked. She did feel a little sleepy. "Coffee."

"Cream?" offered the man.

"Or sugar?" offered the woman.

"Sugar? Why are you-was that there before?"

A mug of coffee had appeared in her peripheral vision. It was in a clean mug and was still steaming.

"Shouldn't you know if it was there or not?" pointed out the man.

He had a point. Julie picked up the cup. "Is this drugged or something?"

"It wouldn't work," said the woman.

The man nodded. "Your body would metabolize it too quickly."

And that was when Julie finally figured out what was going on. "You were a hallucination in Fort Frolic!"

They nodded. "You did see us in Fort Frolic," confirmed the woman.

"But we were not hallucinations," the man corrected.

"I could only see you when I used Scout," insisted Julie as she tried to get Eleanor's attention.

"True we did not exist here at the time," admitted the woman.

"But that does not necessarily mean we did not exist at all," added the man.

…Julie was very confused now. She slipped her helmet off and drank half the coffee. "Okay, what was that?"

"Coffee," drawled the woman.

Julie gave her a look. "You know that's not what I meant."

"I do believe she was talking about what she mistook for a hallucination," said the man.

The woman nodded. "To put it bluntly, you saw us…"

"…While we were in a place that cannot be seen."

"What are you talking about?" Julie asked incredulously. "I saw you so it can be seen!"

"You didn't really see the place," pointed out the man.

"You only saw us, and you weren't actually seeing us," finished the woman.

Julie groaned. She'd just met them, and the Luteces were already giving her a huge headache. Wait. "You're the Luteces."

"That is correct," said Ms. Lutece.

"You never said your names," continued Julie.

"We didn't see a need to," said Mr. Lutece.

"I must've absorbed the memories of someone who knew you," muttered Julie. "Weird that I met you."

"Not really," said Ms. Lutece. "Memories make a person."

Julie downed the rest of the coffee and put her helmet back on. "Yeah, but they're not mine."

"They are now in your possession," pointed out Mr. Lutece.

"In your head," said the Ms. Lutece.

"Their original owners are dead and gone."

"They belong to you and no one else."

Julie took a moment to realize that her mouth was hanging open and shut it. The Luteces were right. The memories were in her head. Even if she couldn't subconsciously access them, were they affecting her? She'd been using…words she wouldn't normally use. "Am…Am I still me?"

"Memories shape a person's personality based on how the respond to certain events in their life," admitted Mr. Lutece.

"However, different people respond differently," added Ms. Lutece.

"A simpler way of putting it is that rather than nature vs. nurture it's nature and nurture," said Mr. Lutece.

"You are still you, you simply have changed your behavior as if you experienced the memories and learned from them in person," said Ms. Lutece.

"At most, they forced you to mature at a much faster rate without you noticing," concluded Mr. Lutece.

Julie thought for a minute. Maturing was a good thing. She was still worried that the memories might make someone else's personality take over hers, but if she was aware of it she figured she could deal with it. "Well, I better-Huh?"

The Luteces were gone. Just gone. Julie briefly considered that they were actually Houdini splicers, but the popping sound hadn't been present. She waved her hands in the space they'd been occupying in case they had some way to turn invisible. Even the coffee mug was gone. If it wasn't for the taste of coffee still in her mouth, Julie would've thought she'd imagined the whole thing.


	101. Which way will you go?

Sorry I didn't post anything for a bit. Document wasn't uploading on Fanfiction for some reason. Seems to be working now though.

* * *

Julie found some splicers covered in bee stings in customer service. She let out some more bees to be sure and checked behind the desk. She pulled out a vest that was striped like a candy cane under a layer of grime. She dropped the bizarre piece of clothing and debated on whether to go to the electronics department or the toy department. On one hand, the arrow was pointing towards the toy section, which was blocked off by tons of debris. On the other hand, the electronics store was blocked by a fence, but the bookstore next to it was open…

Julie decided to check the bookstore next to the fence and discovered it had another entrance on the other side of the fence. Well, might as well see if there was anything important over here. She grabbed some paper so she could try to make some sort of sign to let the guys know which way to go. Now she just had to find something to write with.

Next was supposed to be the showroom floor. "This again?" She was standing in what looked like a town square. She checked for Eleanor again and waited a moment. Nothing attacked her. Maybe if she Scouted…No, she still only saw the town square. She threw up her arms and walked into the nearest building. Now she was in what looked like a flooded locker room. The lighting was busted and she could barely see.

Julie nearly walked off another abyss, but the broken water pipes were loud and speckled her helmet with mist. She turned and headed the other way. She found several boxes of cola (She drank some.), a poster advertising cigarettes for pregnant women (She briefly wondered what Medic would have to say about that.), and some soaked teddy bears.

Julie blinked as she came out near some giant mushrooms and Little Sister statues. At first she thought it was a Gatherer's Garden, but then she realized several toy horses were lying around. She peered over some railing.

A lot of the decorations had been toppled over and destroyed, but it was obvious she was in the toy department. Okay then. She'd leave them a note so they knew there were two possible ways through to get here.

Julie frowned as she noticed a hole in the wall of the lower floor. Depending on where it went, it might be a faster route to the bathysphere store.

And then a drill was shoved through her stomach.

Julie looked down in shock before the drill spun and her entire world was pain.


	102. Hey

_The Irish lady coughed wetly into her hand. "You don't sound so good," commented Julie._

 _"_ _I know." She coughed some more._

 _Julie studied the amount of dirty bandages covering the lady's body. "Don't look so good either."_

 _"_ _I know." The lady swallowed a couple of times. "How'd you end up here?"_

 _Julie frowned. "I…got impaled…by a Bouncer…in the Toy Department. Am I dead?"_

 _"_ _Nah, that's DeWitt."_

 _Julie blinked. "Huh?"_

 _"_ _There are no Little Sisters in the department store, so there's no Big Daddies. There used to be though." The lady suddenly had another coughing fit. "That's how DeWitt died."_

 _That made no sense to Julie. "Am I dreaming?"_

 _The lady sucked in a couple of deep breaths. "Kind of." Then she held out a pen. "Here." Julie blinked but took it. "Don't lose it. It's my favorite pen."_

 _Julie gave the lady a very confused look. "Okay…"_


	103. Psyche

Julie shot up into a sitting position. She hurriedly pat herself over and looked around. No huge hole in her body, no puddle of blood, no Big Daddy or matching footsteps.

Julie thought about what had happened and realized the drill had been blue. She fell back onto the floor with a sigh of relief. She had not been impaled on a Big Daddy Drill. She was alive and perfectly fine. She paused and held her hand out in front of her.

She was holding a blue pen that had 'Best Teacher' embossed on it.

Julie stared for a moment before deciding she was not in a right state of mind to figure that out. Instead she'd focus on getting back to Customer Service and leaving the guys a note about which way to go.

Julie made the quick trip back to the service desk and left a note saying that they needed to go to the toy store. Then she left another note about how they could get there through the electronics locker room if they didn't want to dig through the debris, but they had to watch out for the bottomless abyss. Then she went back to the toy department. For some reason, the electronics showroom continued to be a town square. Julie wondered if she should be worried that wasn't fading.

The hole in the toy department contained a body impaled on rebar. Julie squinted at it. Those clothes…Was this the woman who had torn open that space in the ice rink? Julie wondered what happened to the man that had been with her before continuing on to what looked like an industrial elevator.

The elevator came to a stop and opened to several collapsed walls. Julie climbed up some half collapsed stairs and slid out a huge hole in the wall that lead her to a hallway with green carpeting and wooden walls. It led to a couple of doors with a sign identifying the place as 'Ryan the Lion Academy'.

Oh yeah, some of her sisters had talked about this place. Julie opened the door and wrinkled her nose at a cartoon lion that was clearly meant to look like Andrew Ryan. She went through the door to the next area, which had a broken projector and a very small shooting range with crossbows. Julie considered taking one but decided she was fine with the weapons and plasmids she had already and headed to the next area.

A Statue of Andrew Ryan holding a child's hand took up the center of the room. Julie scowled at it before she noticed crying and tensed.

 _"_ _I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."_

Julie recognized the voice. She moved carefully over to the side where a blackboard was set up. The Irish lady didn't have any bandages this time. She was sobbing her heart out. Julie hesitated. She looked like an ADAM hallucination, but…She reached out and touched the woman's shoulder.

It seemed like an explosion of…something came out of the hallucination, which suddenly became colored normally. The lady's head shot up. Julie had enough time to belatedly note she had red hair and green eyes before the lady threw herself backwards with a scream and the hallucination ended.

Julie looked down. Well, she did look pretty scary. The lady had seen her before though. Then again, whatever happened hadn't been normal, even by their standards.

Thankfully, she found the exit shortly after that.


	104. No more excuses

Julie shouldn't have been surprised that there was a sex shop right outside the school. Rapture was pretty open-minded about sex in general. Julie herself had had the whole thing explained to her when she was four, so she figured that the school explained it to the students as well.

What bothered her was the poster for Big Daddy porn. She understood there were some weird kinks out there, and she was pretty sure she was at least bisexual, but she'd seen what they looked like under those suits, and who knew what other stuff was in there considering Rapture's lax laws?

Although maybe she could find some Peeping Tom…

A quick search turned up no Peeping Tom plasmid, which wasn't too surprising. She was pretty sure it had only been produced for a short time. Julie went through the other hallway, quickly killed a splicer that didn't see her, and entered yet another elevator that took her up. It was a quick ride, and the doors opened to the entrance of Bathyspheres Deluxe.

Convenient.

Julie Scouted through the doors to make sure no immediate surprises were on the other side and walked through. This was definitely where the guys needed to come. Now, where did they keep the bathyspheres? The arrow went up the stairs to…The Silver Fin? That couldn't be right…That place that had 'test drives' written above it seemed more likely.

The test drive area turned out to be a bust. There was a way outside, but there weren't any bathyspheres, possibly because it had been turned into a living area. Julie huffed in annoyance and went back outside.

Julie looked around for a few minutes before making her way over to an area labeled as the service bay. Maybe this would have some bathyspheres in it. She made her way through the lobby and to an elevator that took her down.

Julie was delighted to see a bathysphere as soon as the doors opened. It was a pretty small model, but it was something. On the other side of the wall next to it was a different model. She guessed that if they absolutely had to, they could split up and get out using two bathyspheres. She continued on and found an area full of bathyspheres, including one really big one. Julie grinned. Engineer had to find something that would work with all of these bathyspheres. He just needed some CO2 scrubbers.

Julie frowned. Where had that come from? She wasn't even sure what a CO2 scrubber was or what it looked like. She guessed it had something to do with keeping people from suffocating…Julie gathered up some oxygen tanks just in case. They, could use those instead, right?

And now…Julie had taken care of everything. There was nothing to keep her from joining up with the guys. She stared at her gloved hands. Even if she took off the Big Sister suit…She'd have scars.

Julie steeled her breath and made her way back to the elevator. This was going to be tough. They were gonna be furious. They'd probably be disgusted. She was terrified.

Julie was trying to figure out what to tell the guys as she made her way to the exit of Bathyspheres Deluxe when a figure stumbled through the doors and collapsed on the floor.

It was the Irish lady.


	105. Nice…to…meet…you…

The Irish lady just lay on the ground for a moment. She tried to push herself up before collapsing to the ground again.

Julie bit her lip. The lady was clearly a hallucination, but…the hallucinations…they weren't normal. Maybe…

Julie knelt down and helped the lady to her feet. _"Thanks,"_ said the lady. Her voice was breathy, like she was having trouble breathing.

Julie eyed the gene tonic in the lady's hands. Must be withdrawal. "Need any help?"

 _"_ _You're actually talking to me,"_ commented the lady before nodding. _"I need to get to the Silver Fin restaurant."_ She gestured forwards. _"It's up those stairs. Don't carry me. Someone might be watching."_

"Okay, let me just…" Irish lady was small, even shorter than Engineer, and skinny. Julie could feel bones through her clothes and bandages. "When was the last time you ate?"

 _"_ _I had some soup yesterday…"_

Julie wrapped an arm under the lady's armpits and kept her close to her side. That seemed to work. As the lady's head was lolling down, Julie just started walking. "So, I'm guessing you're dead."

 _"_ _Yeah, I'm dying."_

"Sorry."

 _"_ _It's fine. I've known for a while."_

"So, how are we talking?"

Irish lady paused for a moment. _"You have my memories."_

Julie nodded.

 _"_ _That's my fault."_

Julie blinked. "Huh?"

 _"_ _It's complicated…I…can see things…That might be…Could have been…I saw you…I saw RED…I saw BLU…I saw how thing could happen…I saw so many possibilities…I thought…I thought…if you could see…what I had seen…you'd get through…You'd survive…The Little Sisters would survive…Even if Delta went bad…You could take out Eleanor…Did Delta go bad?"_

"I don't think so…" Julie hadn't actually bothered to ask what he was doing.

The lady didn't seem too bothered. _"Yeah…It's a pretty rare variable…He's a father…The Little Sisters remind him of Eleanor…"_

"Uh, let's back up a moment. You can see the future?"

The lady nodded. _"Yeah…It's how I'm talking to you. Not sure how we're physically touching."_

"And you wanted me to see what you saw, so I have your memories," continued Julie. Irish lady nodded. "So, I guess you got ADAM extracted from your body, and I ended up injecting the ADAM in some way."

The lady was silent for a moment. _"It's…a bit more…complicated than that."_

Julie stopped for a moment. "Okay, I get the feeling I'm not gonna like what you say."

 _"_ _Same here…Can we keep moving? I'm so tired…"_

Julie huffed but started walking again. "So, what did you do?"

 _"_ _I…I wanted to make sure you were the one to get my memories…So I couldn't just die and let a Little Sister harvest me…So I got my hands on one of their needle apparatuses…"_

Julie stopped and gave the lady a shocked look. "You harvested yourself?!"

The lady laughed. _"Crazy, huh? Pretty sure I'm the only splicer who ever tried that…Turns out you can use ADAM extracted straight from someone without having a Little Sister recycle it…You just need a lot more to get plasmids and gene tonics…About four times? I've lost track…but it looks like it makes the memories you inherit a lot more potent."_

They had reached the Silver Fin by then, but Julie barely noticed. She just gaped at the lady. "Why would you do that?!"

The lady was silent for a moment. _"The passcode is 1-2-1-6."_

"Oh, no, you are not getting out of this," said Julie even as she put in the passcode. She wasn't going to think about how the door was going to open on the lady's end. "What gave you the right to stick yourself in my head like that?"

The lady was quiet. _"I used to be a teacher, you know."_

"Is that what you were doing in the school before?"

The lady laughed. _"I had nearly…I was so scared when I saw you…I hadn't been spliced up…I had no idea who…or what you were…I thought you were a Big Daddy…"_

That just brought up more questions. "You were crying," pressed Julie.

The lady weakly turned her head toward a set of double doors. Julie dutifully turned towards them but gave the lady a pointed look. _"I loved being a teacher…I loved the kids I taught…But then…Some started disappearing…Girls…"_

"…They were abducted and turned into Little Sisters."

The lady nodded weakly as they walked through the doors. _"It took a while to realize…I did my best to keep an eye on the girls…But I only saw them at school…Then the civil war broke out…"_

"Uh huh," muttered Julie as they walked through another set of doors to an area that had been set up as a living area. The lady's body was lying on some papers, a bottle of gene tonic a couple of feet away. Well…

 _"_ _It was New Year's Eve…Every year, the teachers look after students…I took some to the Noah's Zoo…And then Fontaine's men attacked…"_

"Well, that sucks," commented Julie as she tried to figure out how to put the lady on the makeshift bed without making this weird.

 _"_ _I promised…I promised to take care of them…and I couldn't keep that promise," the lady sobbed. "I had to watch them die."_

Oh.

 _"_ _And then…I got Elizabeth's memories…and I found out about you…and I thought…if I could just help…in some way…any way…"_

"Let's get you to bed." Julie lay the lady on the papers on top of the body. Irish lady dropped the gene tonic bottle, which started to roll away. Julie caught it and set it where the gene tonic was sitting on her side of things. "I know you're not going to use this."

The lady shook her head.

"…You're not going to get back up, are you?"

 _"_ _No…I'm so tired…"_ It was hard to see what the lady was doing in the past. She was laying in almost the exact same spot as her body. _"…Julie…I'm sorry…I didn't stop to think…How my memories…And Elizabeth's…Not until it was too late…I stopped leaving tonics…but I couldn't retrieve them…"_

Julie shrugged. "Eh, they did come in handy." She picked up the gene tonic on her end, leaving its ghost behind. "Guess this is for me then."

 _"_ _Yeah…You don't have to use it…"_

Julie already knew she was going to take it with her. "…Do you want me to stay with you?"

The lady suddenly got agitated. _"No…No…You need to help your team…"_

"They'll be fine for a few minutes…"

 _"_ _No…It's a…a constant…Lamb sends two Big Sisters after them."_

Julie felt her world screech to a halt. "What?"

 _"_ _Always…They can't…can't win."_

Julie immediately stood and ran.


	106. Pretend this chapter title is blank

The title for this chapter was supposed to be completely blank, but apparently I can't do that...On a side note, this is the only chapter with a different name on Fanfiction and Archive of Our Own.

* * *

Julie ran straight out of Bathyspheres Deluxe and to the elevator. She took out her radio. "Guys?! Guys?! Answer me!"

Thankfully, Spy answered immediately. "Something is wrong?"

"You guys need to get outta there!" The elevator stopped. Julie immediately ran out. Lamb is sending two Big Sisters after you!"

"An older Little Sister. Doesn't sound too bad."

Julie threw the switch of the industrial elevator. "They're psychotic! Crazy! Crazier than Pyro! Violenter than Pyro! And that's not an exaggeration!" How can she get through to them? "It'll be like that time Pyro ran into the BLUs on their vacation!"

Julie waited for a response, but didn't get one quick enough for her tastes. "Get to another area of Rapture! Go back to the last area if you hafta!"

"We will not retreat!" proclaimed Soldier. "We are on the offensive! We will press on or die trying!"

No, no, no. Julie ran out as the elevator opened. "No dying! You guys can't die! Just go back to the zoo!"

"There was a dragon!" interrupted Sniper. "It nearly burned through my ribs!"

…Huh? Julie jumped over the chasm and into the elevator.

"He's better now," reassured Medic.

"Big Sisters are worse!" insisted Julie as she exited the elevator and jumped across the other chasm. She waited impatiently for any response.

Spy finally responded. "Scout, out of curiosity, what would happen if a Big Daddy saw a Little Sister on Heavy's shoulders?"

Julie screeched to a halt. Why would he…The Little Sister that had followed Heavy! Oh, God. "Are you trying to get killed?!"

The radio suddenly cut out. Julie hopped into the bathysphere as she tried to contact the guys again but got no response. This was bad. She needed to get to them right away.

Couldn't this bathysphere go any faster?

Julie glanced at the gene tonic. After several moments she managed to get out that it was the second level of Weapon Jockey.

Deciding that she needed every advantage she could get, Julie prepared to inject the Irish lady's final gene tonic, side effects be damned.


	107. Pretend this chapter title is blank too

"Done shopping already?"

Julie ignored Cohen as she jumped out of the bathysphere. She'd forgotten that she didn't have a free gene tonic slot. She didn't know if she had time to get one. She'd just have to make do with what she had. She was running so fast that her muscles were burning more than they ever had before. She could just make out the arrow darting out from under her, and she hoped it was leading her in the right direction because she had no idea where RED was.

She should've joined up with them as soon as they got here.

 _Julie, I need-_

'Not now! Your mother sent Big Sisters after my team! I need to find them!'

Julie felt shock from Eleanor for a brief moment before she disappeared from her mind. Julie ran out of Fort Frolic. She kept following the arrow. After a few moments, she heard the sounds of a fight and sped up even more. She came upon the fight just in time to see one of the Big Sisters about to attack Medic.

Julie felt a burst of rage and tackled the Big Sister, knocking her away from Medic. She tried to stab the Big Sister in the stomach, but her hand was knocked to the side enough to miss. Julie had to dodge a piece of concrete thrown from nowhere as she released several bees. Maybe they wouldn't be effective, but it was becoming instinctive at this point.

The Big Sister kicked her off. Julie landed on her feet and tossed an Electrobolt. It actually hit, and Julie took advantage to also hit the Big Sister with an Incinerate. The Big Sister promptly tackled Julie. Julie hissed a bit at the fire burning through her suit and blew the Big Sister off with a cyclone trap before propelling herself with another cyclone trap to try and impale the Big Sister's stomach again.

The Big Sister caught Julie and threw her to the side. Julie caught a glance of the guys. Soldier had just been thrown by the other Big Sister, but they were all still alive. They might actually be able to win against a single Big Sister. And then a piece of concrete that had to weigh at least 20 pounds hit Julie in the head.

Julie growled and proceeded to pick up every piece of rubble she could and send them through cyclone traps at the Big Sister. It made a crunching sound. Was it the rubble or the Big Sister? The Big Sister leapt out of the rubble towards Julie. Julie promptly parried several jabs…and forgot that her needle was broken. The Big Sister stabbed Julie. Julie grabbed the Big Sister's arm and stabbed her back in the stomach. Julie quickly moved the harpoon around to be sure that she got the slug. The Big Sister shrieked and pulled her own harpoon out to get away. Julie grabbed her and ripped out the harpoon as violently as she could.

The Big Sister collapsed. "Sorry," whispered Julie. Her arm and side throbbed painfully and yet felt numb. Yeah, she definitely needed Medic-al attention. She turned and saw the guys watching her. Oh good. They were okay. She should get over to them before BLU showed up…Why were they looking at her like that? It was her, Scout. She tried to take a step forward, but her legs felt like noodles. They collapsed under her. She must have been hurt, but that was okay. Respawn would bring her back.

She let herself fade.


	108. Huh?

_"Dad-dy…Daddy won't you please come home…"_

 _"Oh, they're going to have to glue you back together! In Hell!"_

 _"We do what we must. Because we can."_

 _"I love you."_

 _"And I have prepared by staring down the toaster for the past month!"_

 _"Don't go to sleep!"_


	109. What the Hell?

_"_ _Never again."_

 _"_ _Constants and variables."_

 _"_ _What am I?"_

 _"_ _What are you?"_

 _"_ _I'm Nobody. Are you Nobody too?"_

 _"_ _Yes."_


	110. What's going on?

_"_ _Those are cool tattoos!" said the Demowoman._

 _Sniper blinked. "Thanks."_

 _"_ _What are they?"_

 _"_ _Traditional Maori tattoos."_

 _"_ _What's Maori?"_

 _"_ _Native New Zealander."_

 _"_ _Oh…" The Demowoman grinned. "Hope we're on the same team!"_


	111. What the fuck Was that Demo as a lady?

_"_ _Run!"_

 _"_ _And that's how the toilet was invented!"_

 _"_ _You are disgusting…"_

 _"_ _Chicken, chicken, chicken, duck! Chicken!"_

 _"_ _Holy guacamole!"_

 _"_ _I bought a Corgi!"_


	112. And why did Sniper have tattoos

on his face?

* * *

 _*giggle*_

 _"_ _Want your bad romance."_

 _A little girl pouted. "Aw…But Vati said he was gonna show me how to take a man apart."_

 _Medic grinned. "Yes, you wouldn't want to disappoint her, would you? Heavy would be so upset."_

 _"_ _I will kill you metal men!"_

 _"_ _Julie, you need to calm down."_


	113. Since when does Medic have a kid?

I thought he was gay.

* * *

 _"Shh…"_

 _"_ _Princesses don't learn fencing."_

 _"_ _Skree!"_

 _"_ _Mm hmm mph mm hmph."_

 _"_ _Spy, it's your turn to cook."_


	114. Princesses? Where'd that come from?

_"_ _There are more worlds than stars in the sky."_

 _"_ _What if you had been a man instead of a woman? What if you met that version of yourself?"_

 _"_ _Nice to meet you."_

 _"_ _A thousand thousand."_

 _"_ _A billion billion."_

 _"_ _Do you understand now, Julie?"_


	115. Multiverse? That's what this is?

_"_ _Welcome to the Inventory."_

 _"_ _A time to when the world was cruel to little girls."_

 _"_ _Get away! Get away!"_

 _"_ _Can we keep it?"_

 _"_ _It's okay._

 _"_ _Madam, would you be so kind as to calm down and stop screaming?"_

 _"_ _White and yellow are being mean to me again!"_


	116. Wait How do I know what the multiverse

_A woman walked through the busy streets, looking around nervously until she saw a fairly deserted location with a lone bench. She hurriedly walked over, took out a package of newspapers packed around something, put it under the bench, and hurried away before anyone could see her._

 _Shortly afterwards, crying started to come from the package. It was loud. There was no way to miss it. But nobody moved to investigate. No one tried to comfort the crier._

 _Eventually, an Asian man walked briskly over to see what was crying. He moved aside some of the paper, to reveal a newborn baby. "Hm…" He looked around as if to make sure no one was going to come forward and claim it was theirs. Then he shrugged. "If no one want baby, Suchong can use it."_


	117. That…That was me…

_"_ _Let us never speak of this again."_

 _"_ _I teleported bread!"_

 _"_ _Chocolate is better than pain, better than pain, better than pain…"_

 _"_ _Ms. Pauling?"_

 _"_ _I, Merasmus, shall curse you most soundly!"_

 _"_ _You're so young!"_


	118. Wait! No! Go back!

_She skipped along with Daddy close behind. "ADAM's near, Angel's near," she chanted. She could see an angel just a few feet away. She ran for it and knelt beside the pretty angel. "Time for kisses…" She hummed as she kissed the Angel with her special kissing bottle, her Daddy right behind her. Once she couldn't smell any ADAM from the angel, she started drinking the chocolate._

 _"_ _Hi!" She looked and saw a little boy, around her age waving at her. "I'm Billy!"_

 _That sounded familiar. She thought she'd heard Daddy playing a tape by a Billy._

 _Oh! He said he'd wave at her!_

 _Papa Suchong and Mama Tenenbaum said to stay away from strangers, but strangers were adults. This was a little boy. She waved back. The boy grinned happily. She started to walk over._

 _Daddy grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back with a rumble. She looked up at his sternly glowing helmet. "You know best Daddy." She walked away after him…_

 _But she looked back at Billy._


	119. Billy…Daddy…

_Scout collapsed on the couch next to Sniper. "Ugh."_

 _"_ _Hm?"_

 _"_ _I officially hate the BLU Medic," said Scout._

 _Sniper raised an eyebrow. "He went after you again?" Scout nodded. "What's he got against you anyway?"_

 _Scout shrugged. "…Don't think he has anything against me…"_

 _Sniper raised an eyebrow. "Then why does he keep going after you?"_

 _Scout didn't say anything. "Just…Just promise to look in his lab if I ever go missing, 'kay?"_

 _Sniper sighed and slung an arm around her shoulders. "All right."_

 _Scout sighed and curled into his side, hoping that would be the end of that._


	120. Okay, can't see that happening

_"_ _Boom. Headshot."_

 _"_ _Maggots!"_

 _"_ _A ha ha ha!"_

 _"_ _I'm here."_

 _"_ _I heal the man who will kill you!"_

 _"_ _Ya'll're about to have a real bad day now."_

 _"_ _My ass!"_


	121. I mean he's like twice my age

_"_ _I made you a Daddy doll!"_

 _Billy took the doll from her. "Wow…It's even got a drill!"_

 _"_ _Do you like it?"_

 _Billy nodded. "Uh huh! He can look after Mr. Teddy."_

 _She smiled, glad to have successfully given Billy something he liked. He gave her all sorts of things. This must be why. It felt…nice._


	122. Oh yeah, that was one of the times

I snuck off.

* * *

 _The emaciated prisoner pushed the teenage girl forward. "She's smart. She understands scientific method and corrects mistakes. I'm sure she'd make a good assistant."_

 _The much healthier looking doctor studied her impassively. "Trying to save someone for once?"_

 _"_ _No, she really is that intelligent. She just needs experience."_


	123. …How did I understand that German?

_She and Billy tossed a baseball back and forth as Daddy watched. "How 'come you never tell me your name?" asked Billy._

 _"_ _I don't have a name," she said._

 _"_ _Why not?" asked Billy._

 _She shrugged. "I dunno."_

 _"_ _Can I give you a name then?" asked Billy._

 _"_ _Hm…" Daddy didn't act like it was a bad idea. "Okay."_

 _Billy smiled. "Then you can be Julie!"_

 _"_ _Why Julie?"_

 _"_ _Because it's the prettiest name in the whole wide world!" proclaimed Billy._

 _The newly dubbed Julie was surprised for a moment before smiling and turning to Daddy. "Did you hear? I get to have the best name!"_

 _Daddy made a rumble that Julie took to be approval._

 _Julie turned back to Billy, still smiling. "Thank you Billy! I love it!"_


	124. You were so sweet

_"_ _You need to focus Julie," said a familiar Irish voice._

 _"_ _Who is Spy talking to?" asked the BLU Heavy._

 _The noticeably female BLU Spy gave him a tired look. "If we survive this war I'll tell you."_


	125. That sounded like

_"_ _Will the circle, be unbroken…"_

 _"_ _Stop it!"_

 _"_ _By and by…"_

 _"_ _Let go."_

 _"_ _By and by…"_

 _"_ _Leave me alone!"_


	126. I never got her name

_Julie looked up at Papa Suchong in confusion. "I don't understand."_

 _Papa Suchong gave her a look that had her recoiling. "You are a Little Sister. That is all you are, not a person."_

 _She didn't understand. "But why?"_

 _Suchong adjusted his glasses. "Because you are meant to produce ADAM, nothing more. If catatonic individuals actually produced enough ADAM-."_

 _"_ _But-But-" Billy had given her this name. "I_ like _being Julie!"_

 _Suchong was unimpressed. "Hmph. Very well." He grabbed her wrist and forcefully started dragging her towards the door. "I see you need to be reconditioned."_

 _Julie inhaled sharply. She couldn't quite remember Before, but she knew there'd been pain. "No! Please!"_

 _Suchong ignored her pleads. "You will be taken back to the training facility right away. You may return once you start behaving properly."_

 _And Julie realized there was no way to change Papa Suchong's mind. So she just cried as she was dragged away._


	127. Oh no

_A woman she didn't know stood in front of a light house. "There's always a lighthouse. Always a city. Always a man."_

 _"_ _Booker, are you afraid of God?"_

 _"_ _No, but I'm afraid of you."_


	128. No, no, no

_She walked among the streets with Mr. B, looking for Angels to kiss. There were strangers about, but most stayed away from her and Mr. B, and she stayed away from them._

 _She wasn't finding any angels for some reason. They'd been wandering around for a long time. She sniffed again. She thought she smelled some down that way. She turned and kept walking. She came to an area where there was almost no one._

 _Suddenly, a little stranger darted towards at her. "Julie!"_

 _She darted back with a surprised shriek. Mr. B roared and lashed out at the little stranger._

 _For a brief moment, she thought she saw red flying from the little stranger. Then it was gone, and the little stranger was on the ground. She tilted her head. He was an angel now, but there wasn't any ADAM. She tugged at Mr. B's hand. "Come on Mr. B."_

 _Mr. B obediently followed her, leaving the angel behind._


	129. NO!

_"_ _It wasn't your fault."_


	130. Make it stop! Please!

_She walked along the streets. Not many strangers, but lots of angels! There was plenty for everyone to kiss._

 _She was busy kissing one angel when she heard a weak rumble. She looked behind her at Mr. B to see if he was all right. He looked all right to her. She looked towards the rumbling and saw…another Mr. B?_

 _How could there be two Mr. Bubbles?_

 _She stared at the other Mr. B. He was stumbling towards them, his armor tarnished and dirty, his footprints wet._

 _Something…Something about the other Mr. B was familiar but…not? She took a step towards the other Mr. B. He reached towards her. There was something on his glove. It looked like a 'y'._

 _Her Mr. B roared and charged the other Mr. B. The other Mr. B lit up for a moment before suddenly falling to the ground._

 _She walked over to the angel Mr. B. He had lots of ADAM whatever he was. She didn't understand why there were two Mr. Bubbles, but she needed more ADAM. So she kissed him._

 _She got a lot of ADAM from the other Mr. B. As she pulled away, she noticed a slightly squished present in the other hand. Curious, she took it out of his hand and opened it._

 _It was a glowing rose. She 'oohed', looked around to see if there was anyone besides Mr. B watching, and stuck it on her syringe. She smiled up at Mr. B. "I'm ready for dream time Mr. B."_

 _Mr. B rumbled and started leading her towards a hidey hole._


	131. Please

_The lady Spy was back, flicking her knife open and shut, covered in blood, staring at her, and surrounded by bodies. She tilted her head. "Which are you?"_


	132. PPlease

_The two twins danced a slow waltz in a city on fire. "Do you think she's figured it out yet?" asked the man._

 _"_ _If she hasn't, then she's not very bright," said the woman_

 _"_ _She does know what the multiverse is," said the man._

 _"_ _True," conceded the woman. "But does she understand what it means?"_

 _"_ _I certainly hope so," said the man._

 _"_ _Yes, she won't survive long otherwise."_


	133. Heh

_A…a tear opened in the space of a shop full of naked posters. Out of it walked the woman who had been in front of the lighthouse._

 _The woman…_

 _Elizabeth…_

 _Elizabeth closed the tear and studied an outfit on a sewing dummy for a moment before taking it and walking into an empty room in the back._


	134. Heh heh heh

_Everyone in Rapture is dead, adults, children, Big Daddies, everyone._

 _Because you killed them._


	135. I'm dying aren't I?

_"_ _Just let go."_


	136. God's Secret Base

Julie blinked. She was…standing on a cloud. So she was dreaming? It felt like she was awake though. She turned around curiously. More clouds, blue skies, sunshine. It was nice.

"Julie!"

Julie spun and something collided with her legs. She yanked it away, ready to defend herself, and froze as she got a good look at the missile. "…Billy?"

The little boy grinned up at her, looking exactly the same as he had the day he'd died. "Hi Julie!"

Julie stared for a moment before collapsing to her knees and hugging him to her. "Oh God Billy, I am so, so sorry."

He hugged her back. "It's okay."

A rumble caught her attention. She glanced up and saw an Alpha Big Daddy. She tensed up before recognizing which one this was. "Daddy!" She jumped up, still holding Billy and gave him as much of a one-armed hug as was possible. He wrapped his arms around both of them.

Julie wished they could stay like that forever. "Haa…haa…I'm dead aren't I?"

"Well, that's up to you," said a new but familiar voice.

Julie blinked and broke the hug to look at the source. "Irish lady?"

The lady made an indignant sound "'Irish lady'?! Really? That's the best you could come up with?"

"All I had were audiovoxes!" defended Julie. "And what are you doing here?"

"Obviously, I'm dead," she deadpanned.

Okay, Julie could admit that should've been obvious, but that wasn't the only thing bothering her. "Why are you dressed like the BLU Spy?"

The lady looked down in surprise, like she hadn't realized what she was wearing. "I wondered why my head felt itchy…" She pulled off the balaclava. "I'm assuming it has something to do with variables."

"Vari-" Julie blinked and scowled. "Why do I know what you're talking about?"

The lady smiled sheepishly. "Ah, yes, that. Turns out you can also absorb second-hand memories…Elizabeth Comstock in this case."

Julie frowned. "The chick from Columbia? …Wait." Julie thought about the city in the sky. "Shit! I have memories of different universes!"

"Wow…" said Billy, looking star struck.

The lady chuckled. "Yeah, I'm not sure how we're remembering stuff she forgot." Julie abruptly punched her in the face with enough force to knock her onto the cloud. "Gah! Ow!"

Daddy held Julie back to keep her from attacking the lady again. "What the Hell?! That's why I was hallucinating Columbia and Songbird?! And how we could touch?!"

"Yes, although I'm not sure how we could do that," admitted the lady as she rubbed her cheek. "I tried opening tears, but couldn't get it to work."

"Are you serious?! Even I can tell that mixing universes causes all sorts of trouble! What is wrong with you?!" demanded Julie

The lady's gaze hardened as she stood. "Says the girl who ran away from home to be a child soldier and refused to face her team because she was afraid of what they'd think of her."

"Don't you dare bring that up," hissed Julie.

"Too late. We have both done horrible things," said the lady. "Things that we thought were for the best but came to regret…or will come to regret." She nodded towards Billy and Daddy. "And we have all had to live with the consequences of others' actions. All we can do is move onwards without letting the mistakes weigh us down."

"That's easy for you to say! We're already dead!" shouted Julie.

The lady promptly gave her a look that made Julie completely freeze up. It wasn't just a glare. It was rage, quiet disappointment that made you feel like a worm, a thousand yard stare, infinite knowledge, and so, so much sorrow and despair. "Believe me, dying does not erase one's regrets."

Julie swallowed. "R-right. Sorry."

"S-scary." Julie abruptly realized that Billy had wrapped himself around her leg and promptly picked him back up.

The lady plucked a cigarette out of thin air and took a drag off of it. "Besides, you're not dead," she finished.

"Wait. What? But-Dad! And Billy! And clouds!" said Julie gesturing towards each as she mentioned the person or item.

"Are you familiar with near death experiences?" asked the lady. Julie shook her head. "The simplest way of putting it is that you are both alive and dead. Your body still functions, and your soul is tethered to it, but your soul is somewhere else. It's a rare occurrence, but it's a lot more likely with people like us. Now, you need to make another choice."

Julie blinked. "Okay…"

"You can either follow the tether back to your body or sever it and stay here," said the lady.

Julie's eyes widened. "Then I gotta go back! The guys are still down there!" said Julie.

The lady smiled, a real, kind smile. "You're a better person than you think." She carefully plucked Billy from Julie's arms. Billy let out a whine. The lady smiled sadly. "Say good-bye Billy."

Billy smiled up at her "Bye Julie."

"Bye Billy. Bye Daddy." Julie sighed. "I hope…That I'll see you again."

Daddy rumbled and hugged them again, this time including the Irish lady.

"Oh, one last thing. If I were you I'd buy another plasmid slot," said the lady with a smirk right before Julie's vision suddenly cut to black.


	137. Engineer's Back

"Chocolate is better than pain…better than…"

Engineer gave Scout's mother a look. "I had nothing to do with that," she insisted.

Engineer huffed and glanced over at Scout. As disturbing as some of the things she said were (Why are your faces melting?) at least the mumbling meant she was recovering.

One of the Little Sisters came over and tucked herself under Scout's arm. Engineer chuckled at that. "You like her, huh?"

The Little Sister nodded. It was more of response than he'd gotten from most of them. Maybe if he kept talking she'd talk back. "Yeah, haven't seen her around kids often, but she seems to like 'em. Must be because she's practically still a kid herself." He frowned. "More so than I thought. I'm not sure I want her to keep working with us." He laughed. "It's funny. I used to think she was annoying, but now that I think about her leaving…I can't help but think how much I would miss her."

The Little Sister just stared at him.

"Ah. You probably don't know what I'm going on about," admitted Engineer. "Not really supposed to talk about it."

"Why?" asked the Little Sister.

It was something. "There's some things we just have to keep secret. This place is probably gonna be another secret to keep…"

"Why?"

Engineer thought about everything he had seen, everything he could remember anyway. "Some thing's just need to be forgotten."


	138. Ugh…

Julie's stomach hurt. She was on something that was hard but not as hard as the floor. There was a warm body tucked under her left arm.

"She should wake up soon." Ma.

"That's a relief." Engie.

Ma and Engie in the same place? What? Julie shot up. A cured Little Sister let out a whine. Julie blinked. "Sorry." She glanced to her left, and yep, Ma and Engie sitting across from each other. She looked between the two of them. Engie glanced away, looking faintly embarrassed. Julie looked down.

Oh, most of the top of her suit had been cut off. "What happened?"

"You were impaled through the stomach. Your slug was damaged," explained Ma. "You would have been dead if your doctor hadn't used that device of his to keep you alive."

Julie glanced at the bandages around her chest. "I survived that?"

"You shouldn't have, but you did," said Ma. "How do you feel?"

Julie maneuvered around the Little Sister and stood. "Same as I always do." She turned to Engineer. "Engie? Uh, how you doing?"

He shrugged. "As well as I can be."

Julie winced. "Right, I'm, uh, really sorry about your hand…Can you still work?"

"I might have a way around it." Engineer sighed. "I'll have to get help to fabricate the parts and put it together."

"Right…" She looked around. "Where is everyone?"

"They went on ahead to that department store," answered Engineer.

"They what?! Shit! We gotta go!" She started for the door, only for Engineer to get in the way. "Huh?"

"You're still injured. You need to stay here."

Julie stared. "We can't do that! We need to get to the department store as soon as possible."

"Not until we hear from the others," said Engineer. Julie lifted him up telekinetically, ducked under him, and grabbed her gathered supplies. "Hey!"

"Was that really your plan?" Ma asked, unimpressed.

"I didn't know she could do that!" Engineer grabbed her still-gloved hand. "Scout!"

"I'm not gonna wait around while the others are risking their lives," she growled. She dug through her pack and tugged on her bloody shirt. "Where's my helmet?"

A Little Sister popped up with said helmet. "We made it pretty!"

Julie blinked at the butterflies and bows on the helmet. "It's very nice. Thank you." She slipped it on. Head protection and all that.

Engineer turned to Ma. "Talk to her!"

"What makes you think I can stop her?" she asked incredulously.

Julie started for the exit. The footsteps behind her indicated Engineer was following. That was fine. They'd get there more quickly. "I need a new suit."

"Huh?"

"I need a new suit. They're watertight," she explained.

"Planning on going outside?" drawled Engineer.

Julie shrugged. "Maybe."

Engineer groaned. "I'm coming with ya."

"Great! Hold on to your hardhat!"

"What?" Julie picked him up onto her back and then sped off via Cyclone Traps. "Gah!"

They didn't have time to wait around. They needed to get to the department store as soon as possible. She wasn't sure why, but she just knew that if she didn't hurry something bad would happen.


	139. Engineer And Scout Have Another Talk

The bathysphere ride started off quiet, but it didn't last long. "So how angry is everyone?" asked Scout.

"Not as angry as before…Soldier might be angry enough to do something," mused Engineer. "It's hard to tell with some of 'em, but I think that unless ordered they'll leave you alone."

Scout tilted her head, which was good because he could not make out her face through her helmet. "Really? Even though you, uh…" She trailed off awkwardly.

Engineer absentmindedly squeezed the stub where his hand had been. "I'm not gonna lie. I'm upset about what happened to me…but I can understand why you came down here…and why your family has been keeping all of this secret."

Scout shifted a bit. "Oh, that…that's good."

"I can even understand why you told everyone you were a man," admitted Engineer. "Most don't take female mercenaries as seriously as they should."

"Actually, that was habit. Dad was convinced we'd all get kidnapped unless people thought we were boys." Engineer gave Scout a look of disbelief. She shrugged. "The ADAM got to him. What can ya do?"

"Right, habit…" Spy was right. Her father was crazy. Engineer cleared his throat. "Anyway, what I'm really upset about is your age."

Scout tensed up. "Ah crap…"

"Now, I'm not sure how old you are exactly, but your Ma made it pretty clear you're younger than 18."

"You're a mercenary who kills people on a daily basis, and what bothers you is that I'm 15?" asked Scout in disbelief

"15?!" That was even younger than he'd thought. "Hell, you should be going to school! Worrying about boys! Clothes! Not getting shot at!"

Scout stared at him for a moment. "Wow, you seriously think that, don't ya? Do you have kids or something?"

"Yes."

"No wonder you always act like a dad," muttered Scout. "Well, I'd already dropped out of school, so ya don't have to worry about that."

"You dropped out of…Why?" asked Engineer in disbelief

Scout shrugged. "I had to repeat a grade. The only thing I was any good at was art class. I have 30 older sisters, and Dad's medical bills were getting pretty high. It seemed like it would be better to go out and earn money than just sit around trying to learn stuff I can't understand."

Engineer stared at her. He couldn't really comprehend not wanting to pursue an education. He liked learning, still did. It gave him the know-how to upgrade sentries and come up with other projects to work on or just let him learn a fun little fact.

Although…

His family had a lot of money thanks to his father being on the previous RED team. Engineer had never wanted for anything, and had only gotten a job while attending school because his father insisted he needed the experience. He didn't even have to worry about finances while working on his PhDs like anyone else in his position would have.

He had no idea what it would be like in Scout's situation. He sighed. "That bad, huh?"

"Still better than here," muttered Scout.

"Bad enough to become a killer."

"I guess I'm just as messed up as you," said Scout.

Engineer let out a hollow laugh. "Can't argue with that, can I?" Because for all his caring for his teammates and southern hospitality he enjoyed hurting people.

Same as Scout.


	140. Who are you people?

It had been a long time since Julie had been to the main Little Wonders Training Facility. It hadn't been long enough. "Okay, let's see if I remember where the suits are…" She glanced at the doors. "I think it was that one…"

"You sure?" asked Engineer

"No, but it shouldn't take too long to look around. Hold on." She shot off some bees.

"Jesus!"

The bees shot in the opposite direction of the doors. "We're clear."

"Why would anyone want bees to come out of their body?!" Engineer asked incredulously.

Julie started for the door. "I don't think it was developed until after the war broke out. Didn't care about stuff like that then. Besides, it's useful."

"How?" Engineer asked in disbelief.

"Well, they attack anyone trying to attack you and can tell if someone's just playing dead. Enhance it enough and they'll hide in corpses and attack whoever stumbles across it."

"That is a useful trap," admitted Engineer. "How much damage does it do to your body?"

Julie shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I can still move my arms and hands and feel with 'em. My ADAM means I can regenerate stuff that wouldn't normally grow back, like muscle." They had to stop as the doors closed and they were decontaminated.

"I'm surprised you know about that," commented Engineer.

"Ma went over stuff like that a lot. Some of it stuck," explained Julie as they stepped out. "Okay, those are the dorm rooms…So, wait…No, those are hacked." Julie walked to the left, stepping over the bodies. "I think it was this one." She opened the door. There were more bodies, but more importantly there were Big Daddy suits. "Oh good, it was this one. They gotta have at least one Big Sister suit still intact…"

Engineer studied one of the suits. "These have several layers of cloth and metal. I'm surprised anyone can move in them."

"Really?" Julie hadn't noticed anything about the suits. "Oh, hey, found one." She pulled out a Big Sister suit and looked it over. "Does this look airtight to you?"

Engineer looked it over. "Nothing obvious. This doesn't have as many layers as the others…"

"Big Sisters move fast. They're hard to hit but hit hard…I guess if Big Daddies are Heavies, Big Sisters are Scouts." Julie blinked. "Huh, I wonder if that's why I'm a Scout."

"The BLU Scout has nothing to do with Rapture," pointed out Engineer.

"Yeah, it's pretty impressive he can run so fast for so long without genetic modifications," admitted Julie. "Uh, don't tell the others I said that." She removed the helmet. Engineer started to turn around as Julie yanked the right glove off.

Along with a good amount of skin.

"GAAH!"

Engineer turned around. "What in tarnation?!"

Scout just gripped her arm. "Ngh, I forgot about the fire! Son of a bitch!"

"You got hit by a fire attack?" asked Engineer.

Julie winced. "Uh, no, got a fire plasmid…and I kind of burned my hands…" Engineer facepalmed. "…and I used a first aid hypo that fused the burns with the suit."

Engineer sighed. "Can you still move?"

"Yeah, I have some more first aid kits. Just let me…" She took a deep breath, grabbed her other glove, hesitated, and yanked it off. "Holy mother fucker son of a whore!" Yeah, that took off a lot more skin. She breathed heavily as she dropped the glove, dug out a first aid kit, took out the hypo, and injected it. The skin immediately grew back, along with the other bits of tissue that had been ripped away. The pain faded, and she flexed her hands for a moment. "All better."

Engineer watched with a disgusted but interested look on his face. "Huh, sort of like the medigun or medipacks."

"Those work better," muttered Julie. She stared at her arms and hands for a moment. "I have so many scars…" She'd known that already, but still…It felt like she was looking at someone else's hands they looked so different compared to even just a week ago. She sighed and went back to undressing. Engineer turned back around. Julie chuckled. "Shy, aren't ya?"

Engineer crossed his arms with a huff. "Scout, I am not about to watch a young girl undress."

"What about when Medic operated on me?" asked Julie as she shimmied out of her pants.

"Your guts were spilling out, completely different," said Engineer. "…And I hadn't quite absorbed you were female."

"You're gonna be weird about that, aren't ya?" deadpanned Julie as she worked her way into her new suit.

"Now, I have no illusions about how strong women can be," said Engineer. "My aunt was the previous Pyro, and she was just as dangerous as her teammates."

"So, I'm not the first lady merc? Sweet!" Julie finally got all the way into the suit and started putting on the straps.

"It's your age that bothers me," finished Engineer. "…But I'm not gonna beat a dead horse."

"…" Julie sighed as she snapped the last strap shut. She put the ADAM container in place. "I'm decent."

Engineer turned back around and winced. "You look a little too much like the other Big Sisters."

"Oh, good point." Julie grabbed her shirt and pulled it back on, which was more difficult than usual due to the suit and attachments. "Last time I'll wear this shirt…" She put the helmet on and locked it in place. "You mind screwing the oxygen tank in?"

Engineer shrugged. "Not sure why you'd need it, but all right."

It wasn't that hard to attach the air tank even with one hand so they were done in a minute.

"Uh, hold on." Julie Scouted ahead. Just as she thought, there were several splicers waiting outside for them. She set them on fire.

Then she was suddenly back in her body. She realized Engineer was shaking her. He looked concerned. "You okay?"

"Oh, yeah." Of course he wouldn't know what she was doing. "You know what astral projection is?"

"No."

"Well…I can sort of separate my mind from my body and check stuff out. Does that make sense?"

Engineer raised an eyebrow. "Is that why there are splicers screaming outside?"

"Yep!"

Engineer shrugged. "All right. Whatever works." Huh, he'd accepted that pretty easily. He must be getting used to the crazy stuff in Rapture. That or he'd passed the threshold of shit he can take and is shoving everything to the back of his mind 'til he can freak out over it later. Either worked.

Julie shot some fire at a Splicer that wandered in front of the doorway. Engineer frowned. "What all can you do exactly?"

"The bee thing, cyclone traps that toss you up, telekinesis, fire, electro bolts, astral scouting, and this security command liquid thing that makes security systems think whoever it hits is an enemy. There's also some passive stuff…That mostly has to do with breaking machinery for some reason."

Engineer got that look that meant he'd figured out a hard equation. "That's why he hates you!"

Julie blinked as she checked the door again. She shot some more bees. "Who?"

"The BLU Engineer."

Julie chuckled. "Oh, yeah, I noticed he's always glaring at me but couldn't figure out why." She Scouted again. "It's clear. Let's hurry."

They walked out of the facility.

*Caw*

Julie blinked and looked around. "Did you hear that?"

Engineer shrugged. "Sounded like a crow."

"There aren't any birds in Rapture," said Julie.

*Caw*

Engineer raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

Julie ran up the stairs. Engineer ran after her as quickly as he could. Julie knew they needed to hurry, but this felt important.

At the top of the stairs was a Gatherer's Garden with a crow perched on it. Julie blinked at the crow. "Huh, how'd you get down here?"

The crow just eyed Julie and let out another caw.

"Hello, do you read me?" came Spy's voice.

Julie turned in surprise and saw that Engineer had taken the radio off his belt. "Hey, Spy."

"Mn ghe!"

Engineer smiled. "Hey, Pyro. You guys okay?"

Julie turned back to the Gatherer's Garden. She needed a gene tonic slot…and…It felt like she'd been told something…something about a plasmid. It was during her near death experience.

"We're fine. We are trying to reach the bathyspheres as quickly as possible. I don't suppose Scout knows the quickest way?"

Oh, right, she'd been told to get one more plasmid slot. She didn't know why since she had seven plasmid slots already…Maybe it was in case she needed an additional plasmid suddenly?

"Hold on. Scout, you know how to get to the bathyspheres?" asked Engineer.

Julie was busy putting her bottle of ADAM in the Garden by that time. "After they get past the gate, they gotta pass over a chasm with water shooting across it, then go down an elevator, then another chasm. I left notes."

"Are you serious?" asked Engineer in disbelief.

"Yep." Julie chose plasmid slot.

"Why didn't you mention that before?" asked Engineer.

Julie shrugged as some ADAM drained from her bottle. "I figured I'd jump everyone across. I don't have to limit myself to one double jump at a time anymore."

"And how would that work with Heavy?"

Julie paused. "That part was kind of iffy," she admitted.

"Good lord." Engineer turned his attention back to the radio. "Scout says you have to cross a chasm with water shooting across it. Her words, not mine."

Julie smiled sheepishly as she grabbed the plasmid slot and bought a gene tonic slot. "Well, worst comes to worse, I can get a shot of Winter Blast."

Engineer must have realized it was an ice power on his own because he didn't ask what she was talking about. "She also says she left some notes. I guess you should try following those."

There was some muffled talking on the other end of the radio for a couple of minutes before Spy responded. "Very well. I'm assuming you'll have to go through Fort Frolic to get to us."

"Oh, yeah," said Julie as she started filling the syringe. "Probably gonna get jammed."

"Yes," relayed Engineer. "You'll be on your own."

"Understood. Is there anything else?"

Julie shook her head. "That's it."

"Good. Don't take too long," said Spy. He hung up.

Engineer clipped the radio to his belt and pointed at the plasmid slot syringe while she was getting rid of the air bubbles. "What's that?"

"While I was half dead, someone told me to get an extra plasmid slot," she explained.

"…What."

Julie shrugged. "I know it sounds crazy, but considering what my life is like, I figured it would be a good idea to listen."

Engineer gave her a look of disbelief. "You sure that's safe?"

"Oh, sure, I've done this plenty of times by now, and the slots don't make me feel like I'm gonna be sick."

Engineer blinked. "What?!"

"Yeah, I don't know how you can get addicted to this." She studied her left arm for a moment before opening the circular openings on her hand and fingers. If she angled the needle right…Yeah, she got it in her wrist. She slowly pressed down the plunger. It still didn't take more than a few seconds. She tossed the syringe in a nearby trash can. She certainly didn't feel any different. Then she injected the gene tonic slot. "Time to go to Fort Frolic. You ready?"

Engineer shrugged. "As I'll ever be."

Really, that's as ready as anyone can be for Fort Frolic.


	141. Engineer Is In Over His Head

Engineer tapped his fingers against his leg as the bathysphere moved towards Fort Frolic. Scout was being uncharacteristically silent again. It was…disconcerting. "So, what's Fort Frolic like?"

Scout was silent for another moment. "It used to be a hotspot for artists and parties, but there was one artist…He had something wrong with him even before he started splicing. Then he got worse, and then he was left on his own. He didn't cut Fort Frolic off from the rest of Rapture, but he made it very difficult to leave."

"You left," pointed out Engineer.

"Not before he made me do crazy poses in all sorts of random places," said Scout. "I think he was trying to see if I could survive for that long with all of Fort Frolic gunning for me."

"Ah…" Engineer had to admit that made a weird sort of sense considering what he'd seen so far.

"But he didn't try to stop me when I came back through," added Scout. "I think that once you do his requests he'll leave you alone for at least a little while."

That didn't really matter since they wouldn't be coming back through. "I think I can live with that."

Scout looked at him. "What about…Uh, can you…"

"Can I work with just one hand?" finished Engineer. "I couldn't fix a sentry earlier so I can't say for sure. If it's not too difficult…and I had some help," he admitted, "I think I can make it work."

"I hope so," said Scout. "He comes up with some seriously crazy stuff. Like so crazy that even Soldier would think it was crazy."

"It seems like most of Rapture is crazier than Soldier," said Engineer. "I can tell you one thing, he's not gonna seem near as annoying once we're out of this."

Scout nodded. "Yeah, he doesn't hallucinate…at least I don't think he does." She thought for a moment. "What's a good way to ask someone if they hallucinate without making them angry?"

Engineer spent a brief moment wondering if Scout seeing other people's memories counted as hallucinations. "I guess you just try to see if what they're seeing matches up with what you're seeing."

"…What if you're the one seeing things?" asked Scout.

Engineer blinked. Maybe it had occurred to Scout too. "Bring in a third person, I guess."

Scout nodded as the bathysphere came to a stop. She opened the door and held out a hand. Engineer wondered if she was doing the projection thing. She lowered her hand. "No trip wires." She turned to Engineer. "We need to stick together. Some of the splicers are covered in plaster. They don't make any sound. If one attacks you, I might not even notice."

"Yeah, your mama mentioned that…sounds sort of like dealing with a Spy." Engineer was pretty good at spotting the BLU Spy, but it was always best to have someone like Pyro around to check for him.

They climbed out. The hallway had fancy wood paneling and a red, velvet carpet. It would have been incredibly fancy once, and Engineer wondered how much it had cost. "No splicers."

"Not yet." Scout looked up at the ceiling. "Hey! Cohen! We need to go back to Fontaine's department store!"

"Oh, are you expecting me to let you go for free?" asks a male voice. There was an undertone that suggested insanity…and possible theatrics.

Scout shrugged. "Beats me. You're unpredictable."

"Good! Once an artist becomes predictable the masses lose interest and they fade like a dying fire," said the man.

Yeah, definitely insane.

"Your friends came by earlier. They were quite helpful. I don't know why it's so hard to find good help these days," said Cohen.

"So, can we go through or not?" pressed Scout.

"No."

Scout groaned. Engineer stepped up. "Pardon me. I'm an Engineer by trade. Maybe if you have something that needs fixing I could do something to help."

"Repairs? Yes…that would do nicely. The lights in the theatre have been broken for a very long time."

Scout facepalmed.

"I can fix that," said Engineer. Really, he could fix most things. "I just need some tools and supplies." And a new hand…

"Good. There should be some tools in the theatre as well," said Cohen.

"And then you'll let us go to Fontaine's?" pressed Scout.

"Yes, yes, fix up the theatre…and get me a picture of your handsome friend while you're at it."

Engineer's eyebrows shot up. Didn't expect that. "…Alright."

"I know where the theatre is," said Scout. She picked him up.

Engineer's eyes widened. "Wait-" Too late. Scout was off like a shot. Engineer was sure she was running twice as fast as she usually did, which was already pretty fast. The air was rushing past him and his eyes were watering and he really wished he had something more than his good arm to hold onto Scout.

Scout suddenly came to a stop in a lobby. "Here we are."

Engineer shook his head. "That…is a horrible way to travel."

"We're on a time limit. You can walk wherever when we're out of here," said Scout as she took out a capped syringe that glowed blue.

"What are you doing with that?" demanded Engineer.

"It's EVE. Using plasmids uses energy and tires you out mentally until you're practically falling asleep on your feet. EVE…wakes you up, makes it so you can use more." She injected it. "I have a tonic that regenerates it, but it makes me eat a ton, and it's getting harder to find food."

"That can't be healthy," said Engineer.

"Probably not," admitted Scout. "Don't worry. I won't be able to use it once we're out of Rapture."

Engineer still couldn't help but worry as they walked into the theatre. "Holy…" It looked like Demo had gotten drunk and blown himself up. Most of the stage and the front-most seats were gone, and a few parts of the catwalks had collapsed.

"I hope they have a welder," muttered Scout.

Engineer wasn't sure he could use a welder with only one hand. "How am I supposed to get those back up to the catwalk?"

"I am telekinetic," pointed out Scout.

…That could work. "Can you lift that much?" Scout nodded. "Good, let's find those tools"

Scout promptly ran all over the theatre. "They're not here, but I did find a circuit box."

That was good. "I saw some stairs in the lobby."

Scout ended up dragging Engineer up the stairs. It wasn't as fast as before at least. Engineer blinked at the Power to the People Station. "What's this?"

"It's used to upgrade weapons." Scout stuck a machine gun in it. A grinding sound came out of it before the machine gun was spat out with an attachment on the barrel. "See?"

"Hm…" Engineer had managed to find a toolbox covered in dust by that point. He opened it and catalogued the contents. He needed more. "Ya mind helping me disassemble that upgrade station?"

Scout shrugged. "Sure, it's not like we can use it again."


	142. And why are you switching

between me an' Engie?

* * *

"You don't need a welder?" asked Julie.

Engineer shook his head. "Don't have enough time, and I'm not sure I can find one." He pulled out a drill. I'll connect supports to multiple sections while suspending them using chains and the like. Then I'll start on the lights."

"Sounds simple enough," admitted Julie. She started to pick him up.

"Can't you just use your telekinesis?" asked Engineer.

"I would, but since I upgraded it, my control is kind of shaky. I might drop you or send you flying into the ceiling."

Engineer sighed but let her pick him up and jump up to one of the intact parts of the catwalk. Then she lifted up one of the broken sections of the catwalk. Kind of heavy. "Does it matter which one you use?"

"It needs to fit together as much as possible," said Engineer. "Can you bring them all up here?"

"Yeah, I just need to find a place to put 'em…" Getting a sudden burst of inspiration, Julie grabbed the end of the curtain that was still hanging, pulled it over, and messily tied it up. "Think this'll work?"

Engineer studied it for a moment. "Yeah, just be careful not to put the pieces too close to the edge."

Once Julie had pulled up all the catwalk pieces, Engineer had her start holding them up while examining how well they would fit in the space next to them. Julie had to stop to shoot at a spider splicer on the ceiling. She noticed Engineer glare at it but didn't press him about it.

Eventually, Engineer chose a piece that she pulled over before physically holding it in place. "Okay," she grunted. "This is heavy. Do something quick."

Fortunately, there were a lot of chains hanging from the ceiling and Engineer was able to wrap them around the railings on both sides. Julie let go of the catwalk section with a sigh of relief. Engineer took out a strip of metal and positioned it so that it would be connecting the two railings. Julie grabbed it and held it in place. Engineer made an annoyed sound. "Thanks." He grabbed a cordless drill and awkwardly held it up to the metal.

"Maybe we should switch places," suggested Julie.

Engineer groaned. "Fine." He handed the drill to her and grabbed half of the metal. Julie had to telekinetically grab the other half. "At this rate, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to even construct the Gunslinger."

"You'll get it." He always did.

Julie blinked at the odd thought as she started drilling a screw into the metal. How often did Engineer have to replace his hand?

…Pretty often. That sucked.

She focused back on the drilling and talking. "I mean…You can ask the rest of us for help. I don't think any of us actually know anything about fabricating parts, but we can at least hold stuff in place."

"Mm hm…"

"I'd help ya out since this is like…I dunno maybe 20% my fault. 'Course that's if I still have my job once this is over. If I don't, I don't think I can go back to any of the bases without getting shot." She stopped drilling to set another spider splicer on fire before electrocuting it. "Do you think I'll get shot if I get fired?"

"I don't think you'll have to worry about that," said Engineer.

Julie went back to drilling. "So you think I'll get to keep my job?"

"If you don't, I'm sure you can avoid any fatal injuries."

Oh. That made sense. "Headshots still would kill me. If my stomach got damaged like before that'd kill me too…"

"Not that hard to avoid if you wear body armor," pointed out Engineer.

Julie knew that. That was why she had decided to keep the helmet on. She had no idea where to find a bulletproof vest though.

Julie's thoughts were cut off as she heard a clicking sound. She looked around desperately, spotted the splicers with the machine guns, and they would get shot even if she counterattacked now. She tackled Engineer. "Look out!" She threw a hand out. Maybe she could make a telekinetic barrier or something. It wouldn't stop the bullets, but maybe it would slow them down.

*Clang clang clang clang clang clang clang…*

Julie blinked. The telekinetic barrier hadn't worked, but something else was happening. Her hand was glowing blue, and the bullets were hitting it with no effect, forming a sphere of bullets. No, not just hitting. The bullets were actually swerving out of their trajectory to hit her hand. "Huh."

Wait. This meant they weren't in danger of being shot. Julie promptly electrocuted the two splicers and shot them up. That was that. Now where…

Engineer was holding the bullet ball. "You didn't say you could catch bullets."

"I didn't know I could," admitted Julie. "There's no plasmid that should let me do that."

"Not even Telekinesis?"

Julie shook her head. "No, I mean I can lift bullets easy and catch something if it's thrown at me, but bullets just move too fast to react, especially machine guns."

 _"_ _Problem not with plasmid. Problem with reaction time…Suchong just get new idea for plasmid."_

 _Elizabeth stepped out of the portal and into an airship. It shouldn't take too long to find a Lutece particle. All airships had a spare in case something went wrong._

 _Elizabeth looked around and noticed a vigor bottle that was shaped like a battleship and read 'Ironsides'. If she remembered correctly, this allowed one to catch bullets via a generated magnetic shield, not unlike Return to Sender. It wouldn't let her throw the caught bullets at a target though._

 _She'd just have to settle for the shield. Considering how often she's been shot at she could use one._

Julie broke out of the memories. So…It was magnetism? She concentrated on the feeling from before. As soon as her hand started glowing, the smaller metal objects started moving towards her, including the bullet ball. Julie quickly turned it off. "Guess it makes me a magnet."

"You sure?"

Julie shrugged. She was just guessing. "I'm not trying to move anything. They're moving on their own."

Engineer frowned. "Don't use that around computers. You could damage 'em beyond repair." He paused. "Don't use it in my workshop either."

"Hey, I avoid using plasmids unless I absolutely hafta. 'Cept for the double jump trick." Honestly, she was more concerned with how she'd ended up with one of Elizabeth's plasmids…Or was it a vigor? They seemed like the same thing. They'd even made drinkable plasmids in decorative bottles for a while.

She tore herself out of her musings and grabbed the power drill. "Back to work."


	143. Engie Is Getting The Hang Of This

This was mildly embarrassing.

Engineer was not used to needing help with his projects. He would do everything himself from fabricating parts to programming the computers. The circumstances were extremely different from what he was used to though so he sucked it up and let Scout take care of the drilling. This should be the last one anyway. "Done," said Scout.

Engineer nodded. "Good. Now I just have to take care of the lights. Most of them are still attached, so I should just need to replace the lightbulbs. I can splice the others back in place."

Scout started. "Splice?!"

Oh. "Not like that! It just means I twist the wires from two sources together to connect them."

"Oh."

Engineer nodded. "It's harmless…As long as the electricity is turned off. You mind switching that fuse box you mentioned off?"

Scout looked over the edge of the catwalk for a moment. "Should be quick." She jumped over the railing, somehow managed to slow down her landing enough to avoid injury, and ran over to the fuse box. She messed with it for a moment before the lights shut off. Scout quickly used a series of double jumps to get back onto the catwalk. Then she set her hand on fire to make it easier to see. "Be quick."

He picked up one of the disconnected lights. "Hold this for me."

Splicing wires together with one hand was tricky, even with someone holding the wires in place. It took longer than he would have liked. At least it didn't take as long as he thought it would. "Okay, just got replace the light bulbs now."

"I can take care of that," said Scout. She held up her non-burning hand and quickly unscrewed a broken light bulb with telekinesis before screwing in a working light bulb. She repeated the process.

"It's amazing how many applications that has," admitted Engineer. "If it didn't cause insanity…"

"And require young children for production," added Scout.

"And cancer…"

"Not cancer. Just tumors," corrected Scout. "They can't spread for some reason."

"Well, if it weren't for all that I'd consider trying it out," admitted Engineer. "I'd never have to worry about being able to reach a tool or component again."

"…Well, when you put it like that…" Scout sighed as she screwed the last light bulb in place. "I can sort of see what you mean, but I just…prefer getting up and picking stuff up myself. Using telekinesis for every little thing just seems…lazy."

"Ah…" Scout was probably biased because of her experiences. Not to mention she was one of those people who seemed to need to move all the time. "Point taken, but say someone is paralyzed or…" He glanced at his stump. "…missing a hand."

Scout was silent. "Yeah, that sounds useful. It's too bad that's just not possible."

Engineer wanted to point out that perhaps it would be possible in the far future, but Scout grabbed him again and jumped down. It wasn't as bad as running with her. He just had to remind himself that the fall wasn't going to kill him. He walked over to the fuse box and quickly switched it back on.

The stage lights came on, lighting up the broken stage.

Someone was clapping. "Much improved, I must say," said Cohen. "Maybe now I can find someone willing to perform here."

Engineer wisely chose not to point out the stage had a huge hole in it. Thankfully Scout said nothing on the matter either. "So, can we go to Fontaine's now?" she asked.

"Patience, patience. I have one more little thing I want you to do for me."

"What?"

"Come to my Quadtych. I have a collection I'd like to complete."

What did that mean?

A quick run later they were in front of the strange sculpture. Another rabbit splicer sculpture rose out of a trapdoor next to the Quadtych. It had a camera in its lap.

"Your friends were nice enough to leave me with their portraits. Now, I want to complete the set."

Scout picked up the camera. "Thank God it's something easy," she muttered. She pointed the camera at Engineer. He took off his helmet, holding it to his chest as he often did when having his picture taken. Scout grabbed the picture and shook it a couple of times before putting it and the camera back on the sculpture that had been holding it.

"No, I want both your portraits."

Scout handed the camera to Engineer and took off her helmet, looking rather annoyed. "…I don't think he'll be happy if you're making a face," pointed at Engineer.

Scout sighed but relaxed enough to have a neutral expression. Engineer snapped a photo before Scout put the helmet back on. Engineer put the camera and photographs onto the splicer statue that retracted into the stage this time.

"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Cohen asked condescendingly

"Can we go now?" asked Scout.

"Yes, yes, do me a favor and shoot the good doctor for me, will you?"

Engineer had no idea who Cohen was talking about and didn't care. Scout grabbed him and ran for the bathysphere at what he was sure were superhuman speeds. She messed with the controls for a moment before flopping onto a seat. "…All things considered, that wasn't as bad as I was expecting. He must be having a lucid moment."

Engineer blinked. "That was lucid?"

"Oh yeah. He didn't sic any splicers on us or try to get us to dance and sing."

Engineer made a face. Is that the sort of thing that happens in Fort Frolic? Maybe he got off easy. "I should've grabbed that toolbox."

"No!" Engineer jumped. "Cohen would've seen that as stealing. Trust me."

"Okay…" Engineer glanced out the window. "If you say so…"


	144. Forget it

I'll figure it out after we get out of here.

* * *

Julie was restless. She couldn't help it. They were almost there, almost free. They just had to get to the bathysphere store and let Engie do his thing…

She'd probably have to flood the building for them to leave but oh well. Rapture needed to be destroyed anyway.

It's just…there's no way Lamb would just let them go like that. She'd do something to try and stop them. The only question was what. Big Sisters? Big Daddies? Hordes of splicers? Some combination of the above?

She needed a plan.

Well, the rest of RED would be there so it wasn't like she'd be fighting on her own. They'd survived Rapture for this long. She'd dash Engie to whatever bathysphere they'd be using to escape, leave him with the machine gun (Would he be able to use it with only one hand?), help the others fight off whatever was attacking until Engie was done repairing the bathysphere, make sure everyone was inside said bathysphere, and flood the building so they could get out of the broken window.

 _Julie._

Julie blinked. 'Eleanor? Haven't heard from you for a while.'

 _My mother smothered me._ Eleanor's voice was full of anger.

'Oh.' Because what do you say to that? 'I'm sorry.'

 _The bond with my father has been broken. He's dying, and there is nothing I can do about it._

'I'm sorry,' repeated Julie.

 _I gave him something that transferred his consciousness to a Little Sister. They will bring me a Big Sister suit, I'll become a Big Sister, Father will be freed, and we will make Mother pay for everything she has done to us._

Julie decided not to ask if she was included in that 'us'. It didn't matter. At this point Lamb was too dangerous to leave alive. 'We'll be in the department store soon. Anything I should know?'

 _If Mother hasn't already started an ambush on your friends, she will soon._

'Shit!' Just because Julie had expected it, didn't mean she couldn't be concerned. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but don't contact me until we're on the surface. I can't afford to be distracted."

 _Understood. Godspeed._

Julie should've asked her if she knew what was in the ambush. Fuck it. She'd deal.

Her leg was practically vibrating up and down. Why couldn't this bathysphere move faster?

Eventually the bathysphere surfaced in the store. She immediately grabbed Engie (He let out an annoyed sigh that was promptly ignored.) and dashed out as quickly as she could, barely paying attention to the arrow. Through the blown up gate. Over the chasm with the water gushing over it and into the elevator. Over the other chasm and into the bathysphere that she impatiently started up. (Engineer asked her to put him down. She refused.). Out of the bathysphere. Down the entrance hallway. Through the toy department into the industrial elevator. Through the school. Straight through the area outside the school. The elevator.

"This'll take us straight to the bathysphere store," said Scout. She handed Engineer the machine gun. "Take this."

Engineer looked like he wanted to, but sighed. "You know I can't use this."

She pushed it at him. "Just take it."

Engineer took the gun just as the elevator arrived. Julie didn't hear any fighting, so it probably wasn't in the Silver Fin or test driving area. The arrow confirmed her suspicions. She ran over to the service room and to the elevator.

By the time they came to a stop, Julie could hear the sounds of fighting. Julie ran towards the battle and saw the rest of RED fighting a veritable horde of splicers. Sniper was shooting at the ceiling where spider splicers were climbing. Spy was nowhere to be seen. Medic was hanging back and healing as was necessary. Pyro was setting anyone who wasn't immune on fire. Demo was throwing around grenades that looked a lot less sophisticated than usual. Soldier was using his shotgun instead of his rocket launcher. A Little Sister was sticking to Heavy, who was uber-charged and fighting one of the Heavy splicers. The uber charge was starting to flicker.

And for reasons that Julie could not explain that made her furious. She shot at the giant splicer's head, swiping with the harpoon. It cut through like a fruit. She landed, barely noticing as Engineer climbed off. **_"Get away from them!"_** snarled Julie to she didn't know who. The splicers definitely but not one in particular. She leapt towards the other Heavy splicer currently in the room. She stabbed him in the heart through the back.

She'd kill them all if she had to.


	145. Engineer Does His Thing

"Not traveling like that again," muttered Engineer. He knew Scout's speed was useful, and they definitely would have had problems if they hadn't arrived just then, but he felt like he was going to throw up.

Spy suddenly appeared next to Engineer and cleared his throat. It was a credit to Engineer's fighting experience that he didn't jump. "The bathysphere?" pressed Spy.

Engineer straightened. "Right. Which one?"

Spy led him over to a bathysphere that was noticeably larger than the ones Engineer had seen so far. Engineer handed the machine gun to Spy as he started examining the outside. He needed to be sure it was watertight. He glanced occasionally to be sure no splicer came near. Spy was sticking nearby, staying visible and undisguised. It was probably the longest Engineer had seen Spy like that in a fight.

Engineer turned his attention back to the bathysphere. The propeller was intact. That should be everything on the outside. He went inside. The interior was covered in a layer of dust. Nothing looked too badly damaged, but time could take its toll.

With some effort and some help from Spy, Engineer managed to pry open the control panel and groaned. Metal liquid in tubes. Who the Hell thought that was a good idea? Well, at least they seemed intact. Shouldn't be too different from normal electronics. Yeah, that went there, and that…It was pretty simple once you stepped back and took a good look. He'd have this ready in a few minutes, so long as the others held out.


	146. Die!

Julie had let loose her bees. It hadn't occurred to her at the time that they might go after the rest of RED. They hadn't. They just attacked the splicers, which Julie took advantage of to stab and cut and burn and shock and throw and anything else that was necessary to kill the splicers attacking them.

Julie was sick of this. She was sick of Rapture. She was sick of Lamb. She was sick of ADAM. Of splicers. Of Big Daddies and Little Sisters.

She was sick of the memories and hurt.

She took her pain out on a woman in what had obviously been an expensive dress once upon a time. Maybe that woman had let herself become addicted. Maybe it had been forced on her. Julie didn't really care.

Someone was shouting. She couldn't make out what they were saying. She decided it didn't matter as she yanked a nearby splicer onto her harpoon. Then she threw the body at another splicer. She set one on fire. She sent a splicer flying into that splicer so that he caught on fire too.

She heard air being displaced. Houdinis. So annoying. She let out some more bees. While the Houdinis were distracted by the bees she hit them hard. They didn't get back up.

Something roared. Julie turned and saw two Alpha Big Daddies. She jumped the one that was on fire, hitting it with a powerful Electrobolt. While the Alpha spasmed she tried to get around to his tank to disconnect his life support. He recovered and swiped at her with his drill. She propelled herself away before it could connect.

Bees weren't that effective…unless they covered the porthole on his helmet. Julie quickly made some more and put a Cyclone Trap right where he was about to step. Threw him up a little. She hit him with as strong an Electrobolt as she could before flipping over his back and successfully grabbing a tube. She had no idea what it was for, but she ripped it out anyway. Then she swept out his legs. Surprisingly, that worked. The Alpha was sent flying and landed on his back. She grabbed his helmet and yanked it off. The bees promptly went for the exposed skin. He roared and clawed at them. Julie tore out his throat.

Pyro was helping Soldier fight the other Alpha. It was on fire now. Demo was beheading splicers with the Eyelander and seemed fine. Sniper was staying back as best as he could. Spy was by the bathysphere.

Heavy was fighting a Heavy splicer. It slammed its fists onto Heavy's shoulders. Julie snarled and put a cyclone trap under the splicer. She tore out the neck of a Houdini that appeared next to her. She caught a bullet.

Oh right. She could do that now. She propelled the bullet back through the head of the splicer who fired it. Looks like the cyclone trap worked.

She caught bullets and fired them back. It was almost as good as having a gun.

Julie's vision swam. And that was why it was only 'almost'. She yanked out an Eve hypo, pulled off the cap, and stabbed her hand with it while doing her best to dodge bullets.

She felt better now. She checked how the guys were doing again. The Alpha wasn't near Soldier and Pyro. It was next to Heavy and pointing its minigun at him. Heavy had Sasha out but wasn't using it, and the Alpha's minigun was starting up.

Julie started up Ironsides again. The bullets from the Minigun started to collect in her hand…And Heavy just stared. Seriously? And then hit a splicer in the head with Sasha. Was he out of bullets or something?

The Alpha stopped firing, turned to face Julie, and roared. It exposed his back to Heavy. "Get the tanks!"

Heavy immediately slammed Sasha into the tanks. The Alpha jerked and made a gasping sound. Heavy slammed Sasha into the tanks again. Julie put a Cyclone trap under the Alpha. When it was sent into the air she put another trap right above it. The Alpha was thrown face down onto the ground. Julie quickly ran forwards and slammed her harpoon into its neck. It killed him, but the harpoon broke. "Fuck!"

Heavy hit another splicer with Sasha. "Where Scout's gun?"

"I left it with Engie!" She impaled another splicer before managing to behead another somehow. "We were in a hurry!" Any more arguing and they wouldn't have made it.

Then Julie heard a loud crack. Julie whirled towards it and felt her stomach drop as a large crack snaked across the window.

"My fault!" shouted Demo.

"Fuck!" Julie ran for the window. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" She blasted the window with electrobolt. Lightning was made of the same stuff as the sun, right? So it had to melt glass. It did seem to work, but there were more and more cracks forming, and this wasn't working. She couldn't stop it.

She looked back. Soldier was being stubborn and refusing to move, Heavy was shouting at him, Medic was standing right outside the bathysphere with the Little Sister, and the bathysphere was still open.

They wouldn't make it.

She couldn't lose them.

Julie got a crazy idea. She was in a diving suit. She'd be okay. That had been the plan anyway. She just had to make sure the water didn't reach the bathysphere.

She threw up a telekinetic shield right as the glass broke.

Julie's head felt like it was about to explode. The water broke through the shield. Julie put up another, put up as many as she could. They held for maybe a second before breaking. Julie kept putting up the shields. She couldn't do this for long. She had to. She had to. If she didn't…

If she didn't…

What was she doing again?

She hurt so much.

She was so tired.

And then she was tumbling and tossing around and she was so confused. What just happened? She hit her head. Her body hurt. Did she fall out of a tree?

No, wait, she probably got hit by a shot from the BLU Soldier. So why was she so cold?

She finally stopped tumbling. She was floating. She did that sometimes. She lifted her head. Lots of people floating. She tried to move. Something was surrounding her. Was she swimming? She should swim.

She felt so weak, like she was swimming through molasses. Had anyone every actually swam through molasses?

 _The Boston Molasses Disaster_

Oh, okay, thank you voice in her head.

What was she doing here anyway?

Something was leaking out of her nose. She licked and tasted copper. Why was copper in her nose?

There was a light. She swam towards it. Oh, look, RED. Maybe Medic could tell her why there was copper in her nose. Her vision started to darken. She wrapped her arms around the thing they were in.

So tired…She was floating…

She was dreaming…but she was not asleep…She saw things that could have been…Things that could be…She watched the two teams fall to robots. She saw the teams defeat the robots. She saw the Mann brothers die. She saw them live another century.

She saw the Administrator. She saw Miss Pauling.

She saw the plan.

She saw her father going through Rapture, saving her and her sisters.

She saw her father harvesting any Little Sister he came across.

She saw a Big Daddy going through Rapture, saving Little Sisters to reach Eleanor.

She saw a Big Daddy killing anyone and anything that got in her way.

She saw Eleanor absorbing her father so he could live on, promising to live and take care of her sisters.

She saw Eleanor steal her father's ADAM and start killing others for her own amusement.

She saw a woman wandering through Rapture doing what she could before dying.

She saw a woman rescue a Little Sister from a splicer, taking care of her, unintentionally collecting more and then managing to escape that awful place.

She saw a woman killing everyone because she didn't know what else to do.

She saw a man baptized and become a monster.

She saw a man refuse a baptism and lose everything.

She saw the two meet.

She saw their daughter in Rapture.

Someone was pulling at her. She didn't fight it. She was still seeing memories that weren't hers. She blinked as a light hit her eyes. A red cloud washed over her vision, but she didn't feel angry or anything. It tingled. It felt warm…

She heard yelling. It sounded so familiar…

Someone touched her cheek. She groaned. "Alwaysh…a…lighthouse…" That was important, so very important. "Alwaysh…"

Something cold and wet hit her face. Julie jerked up. "Huh?! Wha-" A stabbing pain suddenly asserted itself from behind her eyes. She held her head. "My head…"

"You can rest in a moment," said a voice from what sounded far away. It sounded like Spy. She looked up. It was Spy. He was right there, so why did he sound so far away? "But I need you to tell me who that girl is." Spy nodded outside.

Julie looked. There was someone out there. She could feel that blip that identified other Little Sisters. The light hurt her eyes, but she still recognized the figure. "Eleanor?"

"Julie? Are you all right?" Eleanor pushed at her mind, but it didn't work.

"No. I think I broke my brain…" Wait. "That doesn't sound right."

"Overusing plasmids can burn out neurons!" said Eleanor.

"What?!" shouted Medic.

"But the ADAM should fix that in a few hours!" continued Eleanor.

"Yay…"

Julie lost focus. She'd…had a dream. It had seemed important, but now all she could remember was that it involved the two teams and the Administrator doing something horrible. She tried to remember. She knew there had been more than that. Something…a fight. A big fight.

Wait. Was she a BLU or a RED?

She was so confused, and it just made her head hurt even more. She was starting to remember the events leading up to her brain burn though. "God, Soldier, why didn't you run like a normal person?"

"A soldier never runs from a fight!"

"What about a giant wall of water?" Julie winced at a particularly bad stab of pain. "Seriously, that hurt!"

"How're we gonna get back on the boat?" asked Sniper.

"We can probably climb up a rope," said Engineer. There was an awkward silence. "Right…Forgot. Again."

Forgot? Forgot wha-Oh right, his hand. "I can piggyback you again." This was met by several snorts, a 'nein', and a 'no'. "Okay…" Can't say she didn't offer.

She heard some splashing and then Eleanor's voice. "Here you go. I'm not actually strong enough to tow the bathysphere over to the boat, but at least we won't drift away."

"Heavy can do this."

And then there was a sudden weight on Julie's chest.

Julie opened her eyes and blinked. A Little Sister was sitting on her chest and staring at her. An uncured Little Sister. "Oh, right…" There'd been one following Heavy around hadn't there? She'd been planning to Cure her when they caught up to each other. Julie opened her right glove while activating the Cure and pressing it against the Little Sister's forehead. The light spread across her veins, and there was a bright light in the bathysphere before anyone could try to stop Julie.

Julie smiled at the Little Sister's more normal appearance before turning her attention to the ADAM in her hand. Not like she needed it anymore. She looked around for somewhere to toss it.

"What was light?" asked Heavy, who was doing…something with a thick rope leading out of the bathysphere.

"Mmm mph hm hrm."

"She looks normal now," translated Demo.

"That's ADAM, isn't it?" said Medic.

Julie glanced at Medic, expecting him to look interested or excited or some combination of the two. Instead he looked…nervous…and a little scared. Isn't this something he'd be interested in? He liked human experimentation.

It suddenly occurred to Julie that Ma could probably use this for her upgraded Cure. "Yeah…" She shrugged and held it up to the broken needle on her left arm. When had that broken anyway? It was in one piece when the window broke.

She leaned back. She felt awful, like that time in middle school she'd somehow ended up with two different strains of mono despite the sad fact she hadn't kissed anyone. She was going to sleep until it was time to climb onto the boat and then sleep some more.


	147. My head

Eventually, the bathysphere was pulled over to the boat. Julie must have lost consciousness at some point because one moment they were still yards away, the next they were right next to the boat. Most of the guys minus Engie and Medic climbed out. Someone tossed down some ropes and cloth. Julie decided to just get some more sleep until they were on the ship.

Julie was jolted awake as something jerked her upwards. She looked around frantically before realizing Medic was holding her, and they were in a sling. "Hold still," he commanded.

Julie listened. It took less than a minute for the two to be pulled over the side of the boat. Julie stumbled out of the swing as Eleanor swept her into a hug. Julie hugged her back relishing the safety she felt in her arms until Eleanor pulled away. "Do you have a first aid hypo? That might help."

Julie blinked as she tried to remember if she'd used up all the first aid hypos she'd bought. "Maybe…" She was pretty sure she had an EVE hypo at least…

Julie suddenly found herself sitting against a wall. Eleanor was going through her bag. She suddenly frowned. "Is this…Is this bag bigger on the inside?"

Julie nodded. "Yes. Mann Co."

"I have no idea what that is, but they must be intelligent if they can come up with something like this," admitted Eleanor. "Ah ha!" She pulled out a hypo. "I found one!"

"Can we wait?" asked Julie. She'd had enough needles for a good few years.

Eleanor studied the medibeam energy currently trained on Julie before turning to Medic. "How does this…energy work?"

"It speeds up the body's natural regenerative process."

"Hm…Maybe stick with that for now," decided Eleanor. "The first aid hypo forces the body to heal and causes increased scarring. I don't want to cause preventable brain damage."

Julie straightened. "Brain damage?!"

"Don't worry. As long as the scarring hasn't formed, the ADAM will replace any damaged neurons," Eleanor reassured her. "It would help if you had something to eat."

A bag suddenly landed among the three, making them jump. "Soldier!" snapped Medic. "Dummkopf!"

Eleanor peered into the bag and pulled out a can of Spam. Julie groaned. "Dad…"

Eleanor blinked. "Hm?"

"Dad's got this obsession with Spam," explained Julie. Eight months away from home, and she was still sick of it.

Eleanor stared at the can in confusion. "What's Spam?"

"It's like that…What was it called? Beef-E? Whatever. It's like the tinned fake beef 'cept it's pork and real," explained Julie

"Ah." And then Eleanor peeled the can open and handed it to Julie.

Julie made a face, but she _was_ starving. She couldn't find her spork so she just ate it with her hands.


	148. I hope I don't have brain damage

Julie was starting to feel better, they were on their way back to the mainland, and the only casualty was Subject Delta. All in all, it looked like things had turned out pretty well.

Eleanor suddenly sat down next to her. "Julie, I am going to ask you a strange question."

Julie nodded as a Little Sister decided to crawl into her lap. "Don't worry. I work with strange people."

"I know…" muttered Eleanor. "Are you seeing a land of rainbow and candy and bright colors?"

Julie blinked. "Oh, yeah, Pyroland. It's next to Little Sister La La Land."

Eleanor looked taken aback. "…Excuse me?"

"Little Sister La La Land is what I call that stuff they brainwashed us into seeing when we were Little Sisters," explained Julie. "Pyroland's how Pyro sees stuff. I dunno why."

"I like Pyroland better," said the Little Sister.

"Engie made goggles to see stuff like Pyro, but the one time I used 'em I got stuck in Little Sister La La Land for like a week," continued Julie. She looked around at Pyroland. "Dunno why I'm not in Little Sister La La Land this time."

"The method must be different," commented Eleanor as she squinted. "Would you mind giving me a quick description of your friends?"

"Oh, sure, sure, not like I'm not already in trouble," said Julie. "So, you got Pyro, who's completely nuts and thinks fire is rainbow and bubbles and shit. Pretty nice when they're not being psychotic. Soldier's completely nuts, like, he wanted to join the army but they didn't want him. So he bought a ticket and went to Europe to kill Nazis…after the war was over. Thinks America is the greatest thing ever. Hates foreigners, Germans and Russians 'specially."

"He works with a German and Russian," pointed out Eleanor.

Julie snorted. "Heavy told Soldier that if he and Medic speak English they must be American. He bought it." She giggled. "Even I know other countries speak English."

Eleanor, having an English mother, nodded in agreement. "Mm-hm."

"So, yeah, Heavy and Medic. Heavy's the really big Russian that sort of sounds and smells like a Big Daddy, but that's just 'cause he hasn't bathed in a while."

"I like him!" chimed in the Little Sister.

Julie nodded. "So do I. He likes fighting, but he's nice 'less you piss him off. And Medic is a German…I think he might've lost his license…if he had a license. He's kind of a mad scientist. Kind of reminds me of Ma, er, Tenenbaum."

"That's not a good thing," pointed out Eleanor.

Julie shrugged. "He might've been a Nazi…That's not helping, is it?" Eleanor shook her head. "Crap. Well, he's our only doctor, so what can ya do?"

"I'm starting to question your life choices," commented Eleanor.

"Yeah, me too," admitted Julie. "And next…Engie! Yeah, Engie! He's got like…I think he said 11 PhD's. Bet he could make a teleporter out of junk he finds lying around…except a splicer took off one of his hands, but he says he can make a mechanical hand. He's really friendly most of the time. Next…Demo. He's a Black Scottish Cyclops."

"That's an unusual combination."

"He makes explosives, and he's always drunk. Accidents happen," explained Julie.

Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "He seemed sober when I spoke with him a minute ago."

Julie blinked. "Really? Huh. Guess he can sober up. He'll prob'ly be drunk in a couple of hours."

"He might want to see a doctor about that."

Julie blinked. "Oh, right, that's really hard to find for a black guy."

Eleanor gave Julie a confused look. "Why?"

"Racial prejudice."

Eleanor made a face. "They still have that?"

Julie shrugged. "They're getting better. Segregating schools is illegal now. Anyway…Sniper is a loner, so I bet he's gonna avoid you. Uh…I know he's good at his job and pretty professional but that's it. And Spy is a sneaky bastard. He could be right here." Julie paused and waved her hand through the space on her other side. "He has an invisibility watch and disguise kit," she explained when Eleanor gave her a confused look. "He's arrogant and obnoxious and he'll try to get every bit of information that he can."

Eleanor made a considering sound. "Professional killers."

Julie nodded. "Uh huh."

"Who have you killed?"

Julie winced. "I just killed like half of Rapture."

"It wasn't nearly that much, and you know what I meant," said Eleanor with a look.

Julie huffed. "Mostly BLU mercs, but we have something like the Vita-chamber so they didn't stay dead…There were a couple of guys when I still lived in Portsmouth," she admitted. "I didn't mean to, but I got in a fight, and it got really violent." She frowned. "I…can't remember what the fight was about…It felt like it was important at the time, but now it feels pointless…" The Little Sister gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "There was also a couple of times I had to kill someone for RED. I didn't ask why, but I wouldn't call 'em innocent."

Eleanor was silent for several minutes before she finally sighed. "I suppose I can live with them for a few days."

Julie smiled. "Great."

Eleanor stood. "I need to cremate my father."

Julie blinked, but didn't ask why Eleanor still had her father's body. "If you need help ask Pyro. Probably has gasoline stashed somewhere…"

Eleanor nodded and walked away. Julie didn't think she'd approve of RED in general, but hopefully they'd get along at least 'til they got back to Portsmouth. It was the best she could hope for.


	149. How could she?

It had been going so well, but of course things had to go south. Julie had expected Medic and Ma to get along. It had never occurred to her that they'd hate each other.

It never occurred to her that Ma would've wanted to help the Nazis that killed her family. She hadn't known what to say, hadn't known how to face it…So she'd run.

Of course, there wasn't much room to run.

Heavy's Little Sister made a whining sound and Julie realized she was squeezing her too tightly. She loosened her grip.

"It's hard isn't, it?"

Julie didn't look at Eleanor. She took several breaths and sat down with her legs dangling through the railing. "I knew Ma was a piece of work, but I didn't think…"

Eleanor sat down next to her. "I didn't always get along with my mother, but I did love her. I still loved her in a way, even after everything she did…A child's love for her mother isn't an easy thing to break."

"To a child, mother is God," muttered Julie.

Eleanor nodded. "I'm not going to come up with any excuses for what my mother did. Neither are you," she said pointedly. "They were both sane and knew what they were doing."

Julie groaned. "I know. What am I supposed to do? I knew about the Little Sister Experiments, the ADAM experiments…Why does this feel worse?"

"There were more victims," said Eleanor. "If she's Jewish, in a way she betrayed her own people…And the Nazis were cruel for the sake of being cruel…At this point, I think the Holocaust is just embedded in our consciousness as a nightmarish atrocity perpetrated by monsters. We know how awful her actions in Rapture were, but we can only imagine how awful her actions were during WWII, and our imagination gets away from us."

Julie shuddered as she remembered what it had been like in the camps. She shook her head. No, she hadn't been in the camps. That was someone else's memory. Still, she knew exactly how horrible Auschwitz had been. How horrible Mengele had been. She honestly wasn't sure if Auschwitz or Rapture was worse. "I think…I mean…You don't survive something like Auschwitz and come out unchanged. I thought that's why she was so messed up, but what if she was always like that?"

"Always a monster, you mean?" asked Eleanor.

Julie sighed but couldn't argue. Anyone who experiments on little kids and thinks it's okay is a monster, even if they end up changing their mind. "How did you deal with your Ma?"

Eleanor was silent for a moment. "I…" She swallowed. "I killed her."

"Oh." Julie couldn't do that.

"I didn't want to, but the things she'd done…" Eleanor fell silent. "I thought if she remained in Rapture she would kidnap more girls for conversion. I thought that if she escaped she'd start another cult. She just seemed…too dangerous."

"…Do you think we're monsters?" asked Julie.

"…Do you mean us as people or Sisters in general?" asked Eleanor.

Julie shrugged. "Both I guess."

"I'm not going to judge the things you've done. I don't know the circumstances," said Eleanor. "I…don't feel bad at all for killing the splicers who viewed me as their messiah. The only person I feel guilt for killing is my mother, and I feel horrible that I could kill so many people and not feel anything."

"I only felt bad about killing Big Sisters and Big Daddies," admitted Julie. "I mean…I was probably friends with at least one of 'em. The splicers were always an enemy, even before Dad came to Rapture."

"Just a faceless mass…" Eleanor trailed off as she stared off into the distance. "I guess if we felt guilt for so many, it would drive us insane."

Julie snorted as she thought of all the doors she'd seen, was still seeing in the back of her mind. "Speak for yourself."

Eleanor gave Julie a concerned look before sighing. "I guess it's a matter of opinion."

Julie looked down at Heavy's girl. She'd gone back to sleep. Julie slowly stroked her hair. "Maybe monsters don't have to be bad?" Eleanor raised an eyebrow at her. "We've been pretty heavily modified. I'm not sure we count as human anymore, but that doesn't mean we're bad, right?"

"I don't think we're that different from normal humans," argued Eleanor. "Chimpanzees share 98.8 percent of their genome with us. If there was a significant genetic difference, it would be more obvious."

Julie stared at Eleanor is disbelief. "Eleanor, we can move stuff with our minds."

"That…is unusual, but I understand that at least one un-modified psychic had been identified prior to ADAM's discovery," argued Eleanor. Julie thought of Sheti but stayed silent. "That suggests that the plasmid abilities we have could occur naturally…eventually…in a few thousand years. Quite a few gene tonics also derive from naturally occurring genes as well. Some people have ridiculously high metabolisms, some people have muscles that can stay active longer without tiring, and some people never go bald. The gene tonics just make it so they all can occur in a single individual instead of several separate individuals."

"There's no way whatever I do that shorts out machines is natural," deadpanned Julie.

Eleanor smiled sheepishly. "Okay, there's a few that shouldn't be possible in biological organisms." She shrugged. "We're freaks. Nothing can change that…not even if your mother finds a way to reverse the effects of ADAM."

"She doesn't think it's safe for us," interrupted Julie. "I don't understand why. So, we're stuck like this. Forever."

Eleanor winced. "I guess we'll just have to learn to live with being freaks."

It sounded too easy when Eleanor said it like that. Maybe it should be, but Julie kept thinking about how people would react to what she could do…and then she thought about how RED had reacted. She groaned. "I'm too tired to think." And tired. So, so tired, in so many ways. She leaned against Eleanor. "Could you stay? Just until I go to sleep?"

A strong arm wrapped itself around Julie. "Of course."


	150. Engineer Gets Some Rest

Engineer hadn't thought about putting the Little Sisters down for the night until he happened to see one asleep on her feet, literally. Then he realized they were on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

That was how RED came to find themselves herding several tired and cranky girls inside the cabin, which was rapidly becoming crowded. Some had refused to wake up, including Scout.

Seeing Sigma carry Scout inside the cabin had been nerve wracking.

"Is that all 'a them?" slurred Demo.

Eleanor counted. "We're missing one." Spy suddenly turned visible, along with a pouting girl. "Is that the same-Have you been invisible this whole time?"

"I haven't. She has," deadpanned Spy.

Eleanor sighed. "…Right. You don't seem particularly fond of children, but as you seem to be the only one who can keep track of her, will you please keep an eye on her?"

Spy gave the girl a considering look and nodded. Engineer really hoped Spy wasn't planning on giving her tips. They had enough spies running around as it was.

A Little Sister abruptly sat down next to Engineer and started leaning against him. She was shortly followed by another on his other side. He chuckled and looked around. Most of the girls were clustering around adults, mostly Scout, Eleanor, and Sigma. Sniper noticed quickly enough to excuse himself. Spy avoided the whole mess by turning invisible…and so did the girl he was holding.

Yeah, Engineer was really worried about her.

"You are not babies! You are old enough to sleep by yourselves!"

"Stop shouting, Solly. 'm too tired for this," groaned Demo.

"You have no room to talk! You are letting them walk all over you!"

Demo blinked as if he hadn't noticed several girls had decided he'd make a nice pillow.

Engineer decided to step in before things got ugly. "Safety in numbers, right? Who's to say we're out of danger?"

Soldier seemed to consider this for a moment before nodding. "That is acceptable. You will sound the alarm if you notice anything out of the ordinary."

"I'm not sure we'd be able to recognize that," commented Eleanor.

"Anything you feel the need to attack violently then!" corrected Soldier.

"…That I can do," said Eleanor in a way that indicated nothing would get that reaction from her.

…Figures she knew how to deal with crazy people.


	151. Ow

Julie woke up with her shoulder throbbing hotly. She groaned and rolled over, dislodging a Little Sister who let out a whine at being woken up. "Sorry, sorry." Julie sat up with a hiss. Her shoulder had felt a little sore yesterday, and she'd been avoiding using that arm…so why did it hurt so much? "Okay, I need to get up." She moved the other Little Sisters and stood up. Demo was sleeping across from them with a couple of Little Sisters leaning on him. No other REDs. "Okay, where would Medic be…"

She eventually found him in the galley…or whatever you call the kitchen/dining room on a boat. Medic and Heavy were already there, along with a few Little Sisters. "Huh, I don't think I've ever seen you without your coat and gloves," commented Scout.

"I'm on vacation," deadpanned Medic, drinking something that smelled like coffee.

Julie shrugged. They probably deserved a vacation after the last few days. "Hope you're feeling better. Ma explained why you were so upset," she said as she did her best not to fidget.

Medic groaned. "Wunderbar…" He frowned at her. "What's wrong with your arm?"

Better just tell him. "I have a piece of a needle stuck in my shoulder."

Medic facepalmed. "And you didn't mention this before because?"

"…I kind of forgot because it wasn't bothering me before I woke up," admitted Julie.

"Dummkopf." Medic stood, walked over, and grabbed her shoulder.

"Ow!" Julie immediately reacted and grabbed Medic. "That hurt!" She paused and let go of him to grab her shoulder. "That really hurt!"

"I'm rotating your shoulder to test its range of motion. Deal with it." Medic grabbed her more slowly this time and rotated her arm forwards and backwards a full 360º. Julie bit her lip to keep from screaming. "It does seem like something is in there. I will need to perform surgery."

"Can I stay awake?" asked Julie.

Medic nodded. "Yes. You'll need to wait until I actually have the appropriate supplies."

Julie blinked. "Really? I'd've thought you'd wanna try using a corkscrew or something."

"Don't be silly. We don't have any corkscrews," said Medic. "Besides, you're a walking biohazard. The less time I have to spend with you bleeding on my tools, the better."

…Julie couldn't really argue with that.


	152. Engineer Tries Apologizing

Engineer had just finished his piloting shift when he happened to run into Medic. He was without his gloves and coat and staring out at the sea.

Engineer decided to get his apology over and done with sooner rather than later. He walked over to stand next to Medic. Medic didn't respond. "Hey Doc…"

Medic nodded to him. "Herr Engineer." Medic ran his eyes over Engineer. "Your color has improved. I'd say you are recovering well all things considered."

Engineer realized he was rubbing his stump. He seemed to be doing that a lot. "Yeah…"

"I can try a hand transplant if you like," offered Medic. Engineer gave him a surprised look. "It's not that different from an organ transplant. It's just more difficult because you need to sew together quite a bit more. Not to mention physical therapy afterwards."

Engineer considered it. "How long?"

"A few weeks to a few months."

Engineer groaned. "I definitely don't have that sorta time…Maybe…once we retire…"

Medic's eyebrows rose. "You need both hands. Do you have an alternative?"

Engineer raised an eyebrow. "I found some of my grandpa's old blueprints. He had schematics for an artificial hand," explained Engineer. "You didn't hear me mention it before?"

"I must have missed it," muttered Medic. "Can you make it work?"

Engineer nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure of it. Can you attach it?"

"I have no experience with cybernetics," admitted Medic. He got a creepy grin. "But I think it would be fun to try."

Engineer shuddered. "Medic…I owe you an apology."

Medic blinked. "For what?"

"I…Back in Rapture…" This was so much harder than Engineer was expecting. "After I heard you talking to Tenenbaum…I implied some things I shouldn't have."

Medic's expression hardened. "You thought I was a Nazi."

Engineer winced. "Yeah."

"I am aware of the stereotypes and that I fit them." Medic smiled predatorily. "Even Nazis made the mistake until it was too late."

Engineer blinked. "You…"

"I accept your apology," interrupted Medic. He pushed away from the railing. "Now kindly never bring it up again," he said as he walked away.

Engineer let out a sigh of relief. That could have gone much worse. As it was, he was fairly certain he'd wake up with the remainder of his parts where they belonged. Now he just had to worry about adjusting to all the changes that had been forced on him.


	153. Finally home

God, it felt good to be home and surrounded by her sisters. Julie had really missed this.

Her father had insisted that all the members of RED and Porter stay downstairs, while the various sisters took up most of the upstairs…along with Ms. Pauling.

"Do you always sleep like this?" asked Eleanor.

"Yeah, it's all Dad could afford," admitted Catherine.

"It doesn't seem like the best environment to grow up in," pointed out Eleanor.

"It's not," admitted Jessica. "But they weren't sure it was safe to adopt us out…and the ADAM was starting to make Dad crazy."

"They did the best they could do," insisted Julie. She was starting to realize that hadn't been good enough, and they'd required help they hadn't gotten, but considering what her parents were like…

Well, they probably had needed help too.

"Where are they others?" asked Eleanor.

"College," replied Sora.

"Good," said Julie. "…What about you guys?"

"I'm fine with cooking," said Sora. "I have a job and everything."

"I want to wait a few years until desegregation has become less of a big deal," explained Jessica. "I've got a job at The Jack in the Box 'til then."

"I'm still not sure what I want to do," admitted Catherine.

"You have time," said Eleanor.

"Are you going to stay Julie?" asked Catherine.

She'd like to. "That'd be nice, but I don't think I can. I signed a contract. If I don't get in trouble, I'll have to go back. If not…I'll have to run."

"Why would you have to run?" questioned Jessica.

"…I fucked up," admitted Julie. "It pays well, but there's a lot of stuff I can't talk about. Especially, if Ms. Pauling's in here."

"…We could kill her," offered Sora.

Julie thought she could see Ms. Pauling stiffen up. "No! That'll get me into even more trouble, and I do like her. I don't know if we're friends, but I don't wanna hurt her."

"I'm starting to feel concerned about this family," muttered Eleanor.

"Yeah, we're pretty messed up," admitted Julie. "I think I only just figured that out…"

Catherine shrugged. "I don't wanna hurt people either. I try not to…I haven't had to since I was 14, and I want to keep it that way."

"Rap-That place messed us up. On purpose. It's hard not to want to mess people up," muttered Jessica.

"But the others got into college, so they're doing okay, right?" pressed Julie.

"Yeah, they're fine so far."

"I need to get to sleep," complained Sora. "I've gotta cook for everyone when I get up."

It could take a couple of hours to put that much food together for everyone. Julie shut up and tucked herself up into a ball. They could talk more in the morning.


	154. Ah!

Julie was immediately wide awake. Nothing had woken her up. Her body was just done sleeping. She stood up and studied the Little Sisters before going to the closet. She really should've brought some clothes with her.

To her surprise, she found a few dresses. The others must've gotten tired of pretending to be boys. Besides that weird modeling Cohen made her do, Julie hadn't worn a dress since she'd left Rapture the first time…so why not wear one now? Sure, she was smaller than her sisters, but they were dresses so that wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Eventually, she settled for a white dress. She glanced in the bathroom and noted it was empty. She ducked in and locked the door before shimmying out of the Big Sister suit. She used the toilet, washed her face, washed her arms and legs and body as quickly as she could with a washcloth since she was sharing this bathroom with like 50 different people.

She stepped out of the bathroom as she was smoothing out her dress. She could see the scars on her arms and legs. She'd have to find a way to hide them from BLU. Her uniform covered her legs and body, which left her face and arms…

She walked down and smiled when she noticed Engineer and Demo were still sleeping. She could smell Sora cooking. She walked into the kitchen. "Morning."

"Good morning," chorused several girls and Sora.

Julie grabbed an apple. "I'm gonna go for a walk. I'll…Well, I might not eat when I get back. Extra Nutrition," she explained. Sora nodded in understanding. "Be back soon." Julie stuck the apple in her mouth while she slipped on a pair of shoes she'd left behind (They seemed a bit snug. She must've grown a bit.). She took a bit of the apple as she walked out.

It was nice being home, even if the circumstances weren't the best.

Julie was hoping for a nice, quiet walk…but someone was following her. It was probably someone from Mann Co. She carefully turned on Ironsides and hid the glow as best as she could. Now, where should she go? Stay in town or go to the beach? Well, she didn't want any collateral damage or witnesses. She'd go to the beach. Plus it had been a while since she'd been down there.

Julie had been messing with some seashells when a bullet shot into her hand with a 'tink' sound. She immediately stood, grabbed, and yanked to pull the shooter over to her. "…Ms. Pauling?"

Ms. Pauling just stared at Julie in shock.

"Yeesh." Julie dropped Ms. Pauling and tossed the bullet behind her. "Does that mean I'm fired? This seems like how the Administrator'd fire people."

"Wha-What? How?"

"Oh. That. I'm pretty much the most powerful telekinetic on the planet." Julie remembered something that Elizabeth had done and decided to combine her Telekinesis and Cyclone traps in a new way. Surprisingly, it worked, and a Julie was suddenly standing in the center of a twister. Ms. Pauling jumped back with a short scream. Julie tilted her head. "Scared?"

Ms. Pauling gulped. "Yes."

"Good. It's too bad that I'm being fired. I was hoping I could go back to New Mexico." Julie shrugged. "Guess not, huh?"

"You breached the terms of your contract!" protested Ms. Pauling.

Julie shrugged. "It was worth it. I can handle running. I won't even mind if you do manage to kill me, but if you do anything to hurt my family…" She activated Incinerate and let it bleed into the twister. "I'll stop running, and I'll make all of you pay." She tossed a glob of hot sand at Ms. Pauling. It left a small cut on her face, which snapped her out of her shock. She promptly turned and ran away as quickly as she could.

Julie sighed and dropped the sand. That was harder than she thought. Both threatening Ms. Pauling and the impressive plasmid showing. "Not bad," said Spy.

Julie jumped with a shriek. "What-When-How long have you been there?!"

"I followed Ms. Pauling when she left," explained Spy. "You shouldn't announce you are going to be by yourself when you have upset the Administrator."

"Right…" Julie gave Spy a suspicious look. "Are you gonna try to kill me?"

"If I was going to do that, I would have just stabbed you," deadpanned Spy. "I was just present to make sure the test went as planned."

Julie blinked. "Test?"

Spy nodded. "When I reported to the Administrator yesterday, I mentioned your abilities. She recognized the value but wanted to be sure I was not exaggerating so she told Ms. Pauling to shoot you."

"Oh…" Julie thought a moment. "Did Ms. Pauling know I could catch bullets?"

"She was completely clueless."

"Aw man…" There goes her crush on Ms. Pauling. Oh well, she'd probably been straight. "Does that mean I'm not fired?"

"You'll get an answer once Ms. Pauling talks to the Administrator," said Spy. "You'll likely be punished in some way to discourage a repeat of your actions, but she won't order your death unless you go out of your way to upset her."

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna do something as stupid as this again," said Julie.

Spy smirked. "Oh, so you admit that you need to think things through then?"

Julie gave him the middle finger. "Screw you. Teenagers are stupid. It's like a natural law or somethin'."

"They don't always outgrow their stupidity," drawled Spy.

Julie paused as she thought about the likes of Soldier…and Demo…and the BLU Scout…and most of the adults in Teufort… "Okay, you have a point, but I'll try to grow out of it."

Spy nodded. "That will do. Now, let us return to your house. I'm expecting someone."

Julie blinked. "Huh? Who?" Spy ignored the question as he started walking. "Wait! I'm serious! Dad hates strangers!"


	155. Engineer Is Still Recovering

Engineer woke up slowly and felt groggy. He chalked that up to sleeping on the floor, still recovering from his injury, and the stress from recent situations. He sat up and stretched before grimacing.

He really needed a shower, but it sounded like someone else was using it.

Several girls were sitting nearby with plates of breakfast foods. Engineer's stomach growled, reminding him he'd been eating rations for almost two weeks. "Good morning."

"Good morning!" chorused the girls.

Engineer stood and walked into the kitchen where Scout's sister was standing next to a stove, Heavy was making his way through a stack of pancakes, Demo was nursing a cup of coffee, and some more little girls were playing with/eating their food. "Don't suppose you have any food left?" Engineer asked Scout's sister.

"Yeah, you want some pancakes?"

"Yes, please."

"How many?"

"Two."

"Want any fruit mixed in?"

"No thanks."

"Want any fruit at all?"

"…Maybe later."

"Sausage or bacon?"

"Bacon."

"Eggs?"

"Over easy if you don't mind."

"Oh, I don't." She poured some batter, cracked some eggs, and scooped some bacon out of a pan she pulled out of the oven. "Here you go." She held out the plate of bacon to Engineer.

"Thank you kindly." Engineer took the plate.

"We've got milk, apple, orange, and grape juice, and coffee, but the coffee is instant so let me know if you're not used to it."

"Actually, I'm not," he admitted.

She promptly poured hot water into a mug and scooped some coffee into it before pausing. "Where should I…" Engineer quickly put his plate in one of the few free spots. She put the mug next to it. "The rest shouldn't take too long." She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a knife and fork and placed them next to the plate before going back to tending to the stove.

Engineer decided not to point out he couldn't use the knife. He briefly thought about using his hand, but decided his hand was still too filthy. "How long did I sleep?"

"Is nearly 10," answered Heavy.

Engineer started. "That long?"

"Everyone sleep late. We were tired," explained Heavy. "Is fine. Administrator gave us two days to rest and make plans."

Engineer suddenly felt terrified that the Administrator had decided to make Scout's punishment decidedly permanent. "…Where's Scout?"

Heavy nodded toward a window. Outside were several children and mercenaries, including Scout, who was in a dress. And… "Please tell me that girl isn't making fire sculptures and playing with Pyro."

"Yeah…Masha's a bit of a pyromaniac," said Julie's sister. "Sorry."

Engineer decided to just eat his bacon.


	156. Fingerprints make sense

"The man said my name's Minette now," said Minette.

"Does it sound familiar?" asked Julie.

Minette thought a moment. "A little."

Julie smiled. "That's great. Everyone deserves a name." The door opened. Julie glanced and saw Ms. Pauling walking in, looking very harried. "Why don't you show the others your nametag? I bet they'd love to see it." Minette smiled and nodded before running off. Julie stood and walked over to Ms. Pauling. "You gonna try to shoot me again?"

Ms. Pauling quickly shook her head, eyes darting around. Julie abruptly realized Ms. Pauling was frightened. "Apparently, that was a test."

"Yeah, that's what Spy said," agreed Julie. "But you had no idea that I could do any of that stuff."

Ms. Pauling shook her head. "That would've been nice to know…I guess you passed because the Administrator sent over new contracts and paperwork." She pulled out a sheath of paper and handed it to Julie. "You need to sign these or the Administrator really will put a hit on you."

Julie bit her lip. "Right…" She took the papers. "Just give me some time to look them over, and I promise you will have them signed and back in your hands by the time we leave."

Ms. Pauling nodded. "That'll do."

"Great, I'm just gonna go to the basement where it's quiet…"

Ms. Pauling blinked. "You have a basement?"

"Yes…Ma uses it." Julie walked outside and opened a couple of hatch doors. It looked more like a storm cellar than a standard basement now that she thought about it…which was weird considering where they lived.

Honestly, she didn't need privacy to read the contract. She just didn't want them to know that she can barely read. The descriptions on plasmid and gene tonics are fine since they're short and mostly simple words with pictures unique to each one. A long contract with lots of complicated words…

Julie had just skimmed the contract she'd signed when she'd first been hired. She'd had a copy that she had meant to decipher later, but she'd stuffed it under her bed and forgotten about it. She honestly wouldn't know how this one was different from the first one.

At least she could find someone to read it to her now. Ma was standing a few feet away at her workbench. Sigma had holed himself up in a corner. Ma had hidden down here to avoid Medic shortly after they got back. Julie wasn't sure why Sigma was down here, but she figured he recognized how out of place he looked didn't want to be seen. "Ma?" Ma jumped and spun. Julie held up her hands. "It's just me!"

Ma blinked. "Oh, uh, what is it?"

"…" Julie sighed. "Look I'm still upset about finding out about you and the Nazis…but I'm gonna have to get over it sometime…and I need your help." She pulled out the papers.

Ma was silent. "I never understood why any of you like me. You should hate me."

Julie huffed. "I know. It is so messed up." She walked over. "But you're my Ma. I can't hate you."

Ma sighed and grabbed the papers. "This will take a few hours."

"But you can actually read!" protested Julie.

Ma jabbed her finger into the pile of papers. "This is at least 50 pages of dry litigation. In English. I'll need a dictionary for the more complicated words. A few hours is optimistic."

Julie sighed. "Fine. Let's get started."


	157. Heh, I guess this is home too

Scout scratched at her grip tape. She'd thought that she could tape it up further to hide her scars. It sort of worked, but it was starting to make her scars itchy.

"You okay?" asked Engineer.

"Uh, yeah, I think the grip tape is irritating my skin," explained Scout. "What about you?"

Engineer ran his thumb over his glove, which was covering his Gunslinger. "Still a couple of bugs…I'll be fine for the fight. I'll work on some additional models, figure it out as I go along."

"Right…" Scout pulled out a Sandman bat. One of the terms on her updated contract was that she couldn't use her powers during fights outside of her double jumping, and she was still having trouble keeping her short circuiting abilities under control. Hopefully, the wood would help keep it under control. "Hope you figure it out soon."

Engineer nodded as he pulled out his shotgun. "I intend to. I'll probably be holed up in my workshop for most of the week."

Scout chuckled. "Maybe Pyro can play tea party with Chantal while you're busy."

"Ah, that reminds me…"

Scout tilted her head. "Hm?"

Scout was pretty sure Engineer blinked behind his goggles. "Oh, uh, nothing. Just something I wanted to talk to Heavy about."

 _"_ _Mission begins in 60 seconds."_

"Gah!" Scout grabbed her shotgun and a Force-a-nature. "See you on the battlefield!" She sprinted for the respawn. She grinned.

It was good to be home.

* * *

Well, that was the last of 'There's Always a Man'. I don't have another story after this. Maybe once Valve finishes the TF2 comics, but who knows. I may also occasionally post little one shots connected to the stories if I can get some inspiration. I can think of at least a couple of stories I'd like to write about…

Anyway, thank you guys for sticking with me, from those of you who have been reading from when I posted the first chapter of 'There's Always a Lighthouse' to those who have only recently and will discover these stories. I hope I was able to make your days a little more interesting.

By the way, be careful if you leave a comment, I think the RED Scout's starting to hear them…somehow.


End file.
